The strangest reaction

Wednesday, 7:00 pm

By Kate

Aug

08

2007

A little while ago, a sudden wind blew up and clouds closed in and rain fell. For about 3 minutes. The wind was pretty brisk, but not damaging. It made the blinds rattle a little bit and blew a couple of sheets of paper off the table, but aside from that it wasn’t that dramatic.

Yet Abbie (cat) was suddenly paralyzed with fear. With her belly to the floor, she caterwauled and looked at me with a clear plea to make it stop and to protect her. I held for a little while, but she didn’t relax. Her entire body was a mass of clenched muscles. And she didn’t stop howling.

Now, I know that Abbie is terrified of thunderstorms, but there wasn’t a clap of thunder or even a distant rumble during our 3 minute storm. It wasn’t even really a storm. The wind wasn’t much more than a normal windy day and those never bother Abbie.

So I have to assume that what upset her little applecart was the sudden drop in barometric pressure. According to my little weather gizmo, it really dropped suddenly. And the humidity rose from about 45% to about 79% in a matter of seconds.

By the end of the three minute span, the clouds vanished, the wind died, and the temps were about 10 degrees cooler. And that was it.

Abbie is still hiding under the sofa. It takes her a while to get over these things.