Thor, God of Thunder

I may have mentioned a time or two that it's been hellishly rainy here on the island in the Northumberland Strait for oh, say the last month.  Today's forecast is finally showing sun heading our way for the next few days, and thank heavens for that, because honestly, if I had to endure ONE MORE DAY in the rain, I was seriously considering buying a tanning bed for the basement, just to get some ultra-violet rays.

Last week the storms were at their worst, culminating on a immense thunder and lightening storm on Thursday afternoon.  It rained so hard in town that the one whom I adore got storm stayed at the hotel while the maintenance team sandbagged the exit to the underground garage where he was parked.  

Out here in country the storm was so violent that internet, satellite TV and electricity were all cut off for a while.  Which made enduring the meltdown all the more difficult with nothing to distract me.

The meltdown I refer to of course is none other than Snickers Cameron.  The boy is traumatized with the mere hint of a rumble of thunder.   And given that old Thor was having a hell of a party Thursday afternoon well, Snickers' meltdown was of god-like proportions.

I really feel bad for the dog.  He cannot rationalize that it's just a noise and that it isn't going to hurt him.  And as this 50-lb beast sat on my lap, quivering like a baby, whining and licking his chops incessantly, there was really nothing I could do to calm him down.  Not even bribing him with Snausages worked.

Eventually, the storm subsided, the power came back on and so did TV and internet.  Thank God, because what would I ever do without my connection to all things Michael Jackson?

Anyway, on Saturday we ventured downtown to see a movie (Sunshine Cleaning, very cute in a Little Miss Sunshine or Juno kind of way) and as we sat in the little art-house cinema, we heard it.  The rumblings of thunder.  Not just any thunder, mind you.  Thunder the likes of which Thursday's storm was considered miniscule by comparison.  There we were, in town, while the one who is a chicken was home to face the terror alone.

When I lived in Vancouver I volunteered every July for the Vancouver Fireworks Festival, which is an international competition held over the course of four nights from English Bay in Vancouver's West End, where I happened to live at the time.  As a volunteer I would leave early to get everything set up for the VIP dinners at the Boathouse and then I would come home very late, long after the last sparkler had flared out and all the revelers were making their way back to suburbia.  Fireworks make the same noise as thunder, don'tcha know.

One night I came home to my apartment to find that Snickers had been absolutely terrorized.  In his quest to escape the sound of incoming schrapnel that is a fireworks show in his mind, he tries to go to higher ground.  Given that we lived in an apartment, the only higher ground that existed was the top of my bed or the kitchen counters.  Which is exactly where he must have been climbing when he cleared the kitchen counter of its contents, scattering everything to the floor, including shattering a bottle of very expensive Balsamic Vinegar.  Realizing he was no safer there, he must have climbed down, carefully placing each foot in the vinegar and then tracking it through the entire apartment, up on every piece of furniture he could find desperately seeking comfort and escape.  

So, you could imagine what was running through my mind Saturday night as I sat in the movie theatre in downtown Charlottetown while he was here, alone except for the Gidge to suffer through a thunder storm on his own.  I racked my brain trying to think of what was on the kitchen counter and deciding that really, it didn't matter because there was nothing I could do at this point.  So I settled in to watch the movie.

When we got home he greeted us at the door in his usual manner, tail wagging and the slipper of the one whom I adore firmly tucked into his cheek.  We thought all was good.  He seemed no worse for wear and even ventured to wonder if the storm maybe didn't make its way out to the OBB.

Wrong.

Upon closer inspection we found the guest room bed which I had just made up the day before completely disheveled, blankets torn back, pillows tossed on the floor.  My office door was almost practically jammed shut with my chair rolled up against the doorknob as if to lock out the noise.  The wardrobe in my changing room had clothes thrown out of it, as though someone were rummaging for a pair of matching socks they just couldn't find.  The windowsill in our bedroom had big drops of saliva on the ledge, as did the mousepad of my laptop.  In fact, there were big gobby drops of saliva all over the house.  Seems he roamed from one room to the next desperately looking for escape, or something that had my scent on it for comfort.  Poor dog.

I mean, it had to be Snickers, right?  Either him or Frieda?  BOO!