June 20, 200
 
 Stormy. Hot. Sticky. We had a whopper of a storm last night, and on the porch, it felt like Captain Aubrey in the Endeavor slugging it out with the French Fleet. There was prodigious booming and crackling and banging and I had to crate all of the dogs except Izzy, who lay shaking under my chair. The cows were hiding under the  feeder, the donkeys in the pole barn.
  These lightning strikes have blown out four sets of phones in one month last night. I was in the car with Izzy seconds after the phone popped and  buzzed in my hands. I made it to Radio Shack through hail and rain minutes before they closed and got another pair. “Hey,” said the salesclerk, “you REALLY need our protection plan.” He was right. Lightning doesn’t actually strike the house I am told, but the ground and comes in through cables and wires and wrecks the phone base set.
  This has prompted a raging Country BS debate here about lightning rods, which my house doesn’t have, as it isn’t the highest point on the hill, or even the highest point around the house. It’s life in the country. Get used to it, or leave, is my motto.
Anthony thinks I need a lightning rod, Don Coldwell told me not to get one. More opinions fortchcoming, but in the meantime I’m buying extra phones and have converted to Protection Plans. I have also become expert in the two minute base set-up drill, connecting batteries, going through the set-up menu in a flash.
  I like the way you do business in the country. Several months ago I bought an Ottoman at Judy Flagg’s wonderful store Union Village in Greenwich (not too far, naturally, from Radio Shack) and one day it was there and I picked it up (sometimes she and Ken drop things off) and I love it but forgot that I hadn’t paid for it. Yesterday there was a note in the mail telling me it was time to pay the piper. This kind of connection – Judy and Ken have become friends – is precisely what is missing in so many parts of the country, and so precious here. As Judy said, “I wasn’t worried about it. I know where to find you.” So does the lightning.