Noah, hold off on that Ark a moment, mate.

We had a storm warning last night. Urgent expressions on newscasters faces breaking into "regularly scheduled programming" to bring us their news. My area was under a "severe thunderstorm warning" whilst areas just to the west, north and east of me were under a "severe tornado warning".

I paused. Checked my mailing address. No, this isn't Kansas...tornado?

Sure enough, the sky outside had darkened considerably fast (it was just after 5pm), the temperature had dropped suddenly from the humid 30+ we had endured all day to a cool 19C. The sky had a twinge of green (feck, that must be bad, right?) and as the first heavily drops of rain began to fall, I scrambled outside to fetch in patio chair cushions and take down the patio table umbrella. (Visions of me flying Poppins-like out over Lake Ontario had me giggling).

The boy thankfully pulled up in the driveway from work just as I was finishing my outdoor storm prep - at least I wouldn't have to worry about him being out on the roads. I had him batten down the hatches (close all the upstairs windows) just as the first flash of lightening crossed the sky, followed immediately a deafening crack of thunder ...no time to count "one Mississippi, two Mississippi"...it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the storm was directly overhead. Ten seconds later the power went out and we stood at the door watching the rain come down for no more than 10 minutes. H'mmm, what an anticlimax. The way the winds had been whipping at the trees and the ominously green sky, I had felt sure we were in for a storm of biblical proportions, but no. We waited. Perhaps this was the "calm before the storm" suggested the boy. We waited some more. The power flickered back on briefly and then died again. No, definitely more to come I decided.

After 30 minutes of nothing, we decided we were tired of waiting for the storm...and starting to get hungry for dinner. With the option being firing up the BBQ or going hungry, we hit the local plaza to see if they had power. Amazingly they did. Swiss Chalet for dinner sounded just perfect.

Why is it at "family" restaurants they think it's perfectly OK to f-up your order? I ordered a roasted chicken breast with salad (health conscious girl that I am), the boy ordered the standard chicken breast and fries. We both ordered an appetiser to share.

The drinks arrived.

The main meal arrived.

Where is our appetiser we enquired?

The waitress returned with some forgotten condiments. Didn't my meal come with a whole wheat roll? And the appetiser?

Half way through our meal the whole wheat roll arrived. One single roll looking rather fore lorn and all alone on an overly large plate. And the appetiser?

Finally the boy pushed his empty plate to one side as the appetiser appeared out of the kitchen. We had planned to share it, but by this time we were both more than content with our meals and no longer hungry. Rather than send it back to the kitchen however with a "too late" refusal we ended up asking for a box for it and brought it home. Somehow I don't think they'd do that at Spago. However admittedly I wouldn't get two meals plus drinks for under $40 at Spago, so I will shut the h-up.

Still no power at home...and no sign of the storm. The boy decided he had friends (with power) to visit for the evening, which left me alone, with a laptop and 3 hours battery life...and all the solitaire and minesweeper a girl can handle. (20 minutes)

After texting a few friends who were happy, and had power...and were none too sympathetic to my plight, I decided an early night is always a good thing. No wonder the birthrate always goes up after a power-cut - nothing better to do in the dark! Sadly however I didn't have such entertaining distractions.

Finally at 11pm the power came on again. Bolting me out of a dead sleep as various lights, radios etc. in the house came back to life. All it seems , except my main computer, who refuses to power on, although modem, monitor, router etc all power up, my CPU doesn't even stutter - and before anyone asks, that's WITH being on a surge protector. So it may just be a huge coinkydink...but I fear my computer may have gone to that big scrap yard in the sky...and lord knows I can't afford a new one at the moment. Thank heaven's the boy has this laptop or I'd be going through some pretty major withdrawals right about now.

I ended up watched the TV news for half an hour or so, just to get an idea of how the storm when through the rest of the GTA - seems there were a lot of trees down, blown transformers and wires down...but no mention of any tornado touching down...they did however find time to cover the news of some socialite heiress who is going back to jail - although I can't remember her name for the life of me. (ahem).