Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck:  Adj. as if struck dumb with astonishment and surprise

Have you ever been thunderstruck?  I try not to be, but when your family is made up of Big D, Bonny Annie, Dirty Harry and Cap’n Jack Henry it seems to be a way of life.  Also, have you ever noticed that different things cause different people to be thunderstruck?  I mean what shocks one person is barely a blip on the screen of another.

Take Bonny Annie’s recent hairstyle…

I was mildly thunderstruck when I saw her bound down our stairs with dreadlocks on the morning of our departure for South Carolina.  But I was even more thunderstruck (thunderstricken?) when she wanted to know if I thought she looked African American.  I bit my tongue to keep from laughing.  The child is from Swedish and Irish/European ancestry.  She is a redhead.  With freckles.  She has to use SPF50 sunscreen.  Again, even more thunderstruckism occured when she was disappointed that she did not look African American and she confessed that she had always wanted to look thusly.  You learn something new everyday, I guess.

Big D, I’m quite sure was (or will be) thunderstruck to see that I was indeed able to pack our van for the trip by myself.

Now, don’t tell anyone this, okay?  But I was a little thunderstruck by this as well.  There was a moment that I didn’t think I could do it either.

Later, on our trip, I was thunderstruck by this…

Not so much that Indiana Mimi is drinking Pepsi from one of Jack Henry’s bottles (because I was the one who poured it for her), but that she actually drank it and posed for a picture with it.  I mean she knows any photo I take is fair game for my blog or Facebook, but there she sat, poised with her beverage in a baby’s bottle, allowing me to capture the moment with my camera.  I think Indiana Mimi must have been very tired.

Before we left on our trip, I had asked Annaleigh to watch Jack Henry for me for a while so that I could get some packing done, and I was thunderstruck by this site in her room when I was later looking for them….

Her explanation was that she was trying to get some packing done herself, and was unsuccessful with Jack Henry rolling all over her bed.  She found that he was happy….and contained….when placed inside her open suitcase.  Now that I’m here at home by myself with the Cap’n, I’m finding this may not be such a bad idea.  Where is that suitcase, anyway?

I don’t think anyone was more thunderstruck than Clara to be brought to a home and plunked down in front of her mirror image:  her sister, Sadie, who is owned by my sister’s family.  I think what was most thunderstriking to Clara was that she discovered on this trip that she is, in fact, a dog.  We do not sniff her rear or try to clean her ears with our tongues or try to steal and chew on her toys.  She sleeps in the kids’ beds, takes showers with them and sits on the sofa to watch TV.  It was a rude awakening for Miss Clara to be treated like a dog by other dogs, no less….but a fun one, eventually.

I was not thunderstruck to be tail-gated in downtown Charleston, but Annaleigh and Harrison were VERY thunderstruck that we were being tail-gated by this…

I guess it’s all perspective.

I’ll leave you with this short video clip of Harrison’s All-Star team being announced at the opening ceremony at the TN Youth Baseball Assoc. championships.  Because, ironically, they marched to AC/DC’s song “Thunderstruck.”  (Dirty Harry is one that is carrying a smaller sign in the front right.  The one with the sunglasses on his cap.)

So, what gets you all thunderstruck?