"Woke last night to the sound of thunder...."

Oppressive heat. What the old folks used to call "stinkin' heat." You could walk outside yesterday and cut the muggy with a knife. But you know what? I love it. LOVE it. I thump my chest and say "yeah it's hot but this is the south and it gets hot! Deal with it!" Kind of like folks from Minnesota and Wisconsin move down here and laugh at us calling any weather cold. I see hot and muggy as part of what makes us, well, US! Long days, sticky nights and lightning bugs. LOVE it!
The muggy and the hot made a nice stew for some huge thunderstorms. I enjoy those loud storms as much as I enjoy the hot. A short blast of cool and wet and the earth smells clean and looks momentarily green...a short reprieve from the scorched look it wore before the storm. As a small child I remember those loud, dark and scary storms as an opportunity to get wrapped up in a parent's ability to shield us from all evil. "It's just noise." "Listen,,,the time between lightning and thunder is getting longer..that means the storm's moving on." "Look! The devil's beating his wife! The sun is out and it's raining at the same time!" That's when a daddy is a daddy - when he's making the storm go away. I don't have any children. But I have a yellow Labrador Retriever who was less than thrilled with the loud proceedings yesterday. I wasn't paying attention 'til I walked through the living room and noticed her lying between couch and coffee table. All I could see were big, fearful, begging, brown eyes. "Make it go away!" I stopped what I was doing and sat down on the couch and rubbed that belly 'til she was sure that not even the devil himself could get in through the back door. A belly rub and supper hitting her bowl made everything right with the world again. I felt like a daddy.