Lightning Pushes the Edge of a Thunderstorm

[austin_dern]

So we had a spot of weather last night. We got home from pinball league and the Michigan Furries telegram group was busy sharing weather maps and reports of lots of water coming down and lots of wind going fast. Turns out we were under a severe thunderstorm warning until something like 1:15, and while we did not face down a tornado, they were pretty plausible things. When the TV switched over to Stephen Colbert, he was nowhere to be found, with the local news's weather guys having converged on the screen to look at radar, point at things that might be tornado cells forming, and thanking people for sending in footage of things that might be funnel clouds seen in-between the rapid lightning strikes.

Fortunately, we did not get a tornado, or even hail heavy enough to do us damage. The rain was apparently going at the rate of four inches an hour at some points, but for small slices of an hour, and there was humbling beauty to appreciate in the density of the rain and the incessance of the lightning. Our satellite TV lost the local station --- it froze up just at the moment our lights flickered a moment --- and we had to follow it on the Internet until I went to bed. But, far as I can tell, we didn't lose power, or at least not long enough to force clocks to be reset. And hey, free goldfish pond expansion, what's not to like?

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Now let's continue walking Idlewild Park's fairy tale forest.

Behind the Crooked House is this old statue of the Crooked Man and his Crooked Mouse.

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In the midst of the park is this, surely once a snack stand. The poem --- ``There was a jolly miller who lived on the River Dee, he worked and sang from morn' till night, no lark so blyth as he'' --- I can find elsewhere on the Internet so it existed, I guess.

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And here's just a statue dedicated to ``the wonderful memories of childhood'' and the days of childhood when you were covered in pigeons.

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A dock and somewhere in there statues to Huckleberry Finn, who's not really a fairy tale.

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A little pirate ship on the lake; we also had some fun interactions with the captain, who did some up-close magic with us that got us lollipops.

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As you see, it's a legitimate pirate ship, complete with plank.

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There's a tiny cabin that you can fit in if you're a kid or if you just stick your hand in and photograph around.

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Then there's a little train playset with a bunch of face up front.

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I remembered the park had a bunch of signs on the grass and around trees asking people to not damage them, and while the park didn't seem to have as many as my memory dictated there were some, like this Please Don't Tread On Me sign for the grass.

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Remember the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff? ... I believe the last time we visited in 2014 they had actual live goats but this time it was just cutouts.

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Now what would a cat be doing inside a wishing-class well?

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Oh yes, it's because of this rhyme that I know exists but not any parts past there. Let me just look up and see if that's how the rhyme ends or if there's more parts to it and oh my well I see why Idlewild cut the rhyme off there, all right.

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Trivia: The words ``neat'' and ``net'' both derive from the Middle French ``net'' meaning ``clear, clean, pure'', and both began in English meaning ``finely made, clean, clear, trim, elegant''. Source: Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning, Sol Steinmetz.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 89: Moon Plant!, Bud Sagendorf. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Comments

[bunnyhugger]

"Kitty's" in the well is the part that's getting up my nose. I'm sorry but like, everyone who's ever actually heard the rhyme knows that it's "Pussy's in the well" and no I don't care if that makes a 10 year old snicker, so there.

[conuly]

That cat looks entirely too excited to be in a well.