stormy weather

It's summer in Florida and that means afternoon storms. Right now there's a total doozy going on out there and I wish I'd brought my camera. The lightning is leaving white lines in my eyes and I'm not even looking out the window; the thunder is rattling the windows and the wind is whipping the undulating grey rain sheets away from our building and north up highway one. I like watching it but I'm glad I work indoors :) The storms have been quite heavy at night for the last two nights, but only out at sea. We live half a mile from the ocean and as we take our midnight swim before bed, we can see the clouds lighting up every three to four seconds, but we don't hear the lightning. Every minute or so it pauses and about eight seconds later there'll be a tremendous white flash that lights up the whole western sky. Cripes...a huge bolt just hit the ground and made a weird ripping sound, like a kid playing with a toy spaceship..."psheeeewwww!"

Today we had a presentation from the four different insurance companies that are handling different parts of our company's insurance plans. In case you don't live in the USA, the cost of health insurance is very high here - I think we're paying about $1200 per month for each employee - and we're very lucky to have an employer that covers the cost for us. The only part I turned down was the optional "accident coverage" provided by AFLAC because I'm young, relatively healthy, have a very safe job (safe meaning not physically dangerous) and I don't even get on the highway to drive home - I'm 5 miles away on one lightly used road.