Oh, for crying out loud.
Yesterday, I postponed hacking away at the long grass, because my neighbor's son volunteered to run his riding mower over it. Today, over my end of the county, someone left a tap on in the sky, and it came down at about the same rate as that water main that broke over by UCLA this week. I can't remember the last time this much rain came down this fast here. They said over five inches of rain fell today, in our part of town. I have a sinking feeling that my entire back yard will be an unmowable swamp again, not just the bottom section by the weeping willow, before I can get any help from next door. I don't know whether it was rain or some other crisis that had the major arterial road closed for a couple blocks as I tried to make it across town. At least there weren't as many flooded roads up where I live as there were downtown. They said the city ranks on the top ten list for frequent "nuisance flooding." I think I'm glad we didn't end up living down on the coast.
This week is a big test for how well the big drainage canal behind our Colorado condos has been repaired. In September, when the biblical flood came, our complex suffered so badly (the highest number of units lost in town) because there was a giant grate over the culvert where it runs into the main street next to the development. Debris piled up on that grate, and the force of the water was so extreme that it dented the steel bars. Water backed up quickly, flooding all the ground level units in the lower buildings to the ceiling. The second building was skipped somehow, but the water came up through the drains in our building several inches (almost a foot in one unit). We have been promised that the culvert problem has been fixed. There was supposed to be record setting rain for this time in July coming down this week. I have to keep breathing deeply and trying to trust that all will be well.
Today was a day for literal flooding, and a metaphorical flood of disasters. Sure, they were little things, but when it comes one on top of another, it's really hard not to just give up and go to bed early. I tried so hard to be good. I cleaned my bedroom, stripped the bed for fresh sheets, and vacuumed up the spare dog that the little red-headed dog is trying to sprout from discarded fur on the floor next to my bed.There's a reason one does not vacuum blindly into a piled up duvet in the corner. So much for that cool "statement necklace" that my mother gave me twenty years ago, that I knocked to the floor when I threw the blanket. It made quite a racket as it died. I gave up, and came downstairs to throw the sheets and mattress cover in the washer. As it turns out, if you aren't careful about tucking all your dirty laundry inside a front-load washer, and a little corner gets shut into the seal of the door, you are going to learn just how many swear words you can say in one quick burst as you run from the couch to the laundry room. For once, I was glad I failed to take the last load of towels upstairs to the linen closet. I had a big stack to choose from to soak up a couple gallons of water that dribbled out. In all my cleaning, I intentionally left the door to Cricketstan open, so she could have one of her rare visitation trips to the rest of the house. As soon as I sat down after the laundry crisis, I realized she had vandalized the same spot on the wood floor that landed her her own independent nation in the first place. (I did not take a picture of that before I cleaned it up. You're welcome.)
I've had worse days. Much worse. But I think I'm about ready to call this one and get ready to start it all over tomorrow. Surely there won't be so many little nuisances in a row.
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