What A Night!

Somewhere in the night last night, I was startled awake by a very loud noise -- sounding like thunder, but not quite like thunder.  As I lay there in my bed listening to the storms rolling through, I thought, "It must have been a very loud clap of thunder.  Strange sounding thunder, but still..."

I drifted back off to sleep, not thinking any more about it until this morning when I was getting ready to leave for work.  I opened my Facebook to see if there were any comments on yesterday's post that I could respond to before heading out the door, and I saw this on the local newspaper's page. 

The strong winds last night completely blew this building apart.   If you want to go look up the post about it on the Grenada Downtown District page on Facebook, there are more photos in the comments, but I didn't want to share them without permission.

Anyway, this is what it looked like the last time Google Earth drove through town a few years back.

I remember when I first moved here, it was a really nice place.  It had a clothing shop on the ground floor and a couple of apartments on the upper floor.  I seem to remember a couple of Juliet balconies on the windows as well. 

It had gotten pretty run down here lately, and had become a real eyesore.  Several people had offered to buy it, but for some reason, the owner flat out refused to sell it, or was asking way too much for a property of that size.  So, there it sat, becoming more and more dilapidated...until last night.   

What they are speculating is that because the windows had been boarded up and the roof had partially collapsed, when the winds came through, there was nowhere for the air pressure to go.  It just kept building up until the entire building exploded.  That's sure what it sounded like.

Now, nobody knows what's going to happen, or how long the mess is going to sit there -- or if the taxpayer is going to have to pay for the cleanup, since the owner obviously isn't that concerned.  We shall see. 

At least we got a good bit of rain out of the deal, which has really brought out the Cosmos.

  

In other news, things are going from bad to worse out at work.  Today they brought around a paper asking for people to volunteer to work Sunday.  I heard they want to run three lines.  Well, I say good luck with that.  Ten years ago, I'd have jumped at the chance, but not any more.  It's too hot, we're already working too much, and I'm getting too old for this.  

Then they turned around and let some of the lines go home early.  Go figure. 

Speaking of heat, they've started putting up these giant fans around the plant. 

Since they can't get the air conditioners working, you know.  Blowing all the hot air down from the ceilings will certainly solve everything.  Whatever.  

Now, for a bit of good news, I saw three deer behind the fence this afternoon, plus the fawn.  I tried to get a photo, but the little one is understandably skittish, so this is the best you're going to get for now. 

And finally, I remembered that Librivox has an app, so I downloaded it this afternoon and listened to the first two chapters of Les Miserables in the original French.  I understood very little, but managed to catch a word here and there.   I figure the more I listen, the easier it'll get. 

Hopefully...