117 - Rain, Rain Go Away. Seriously.

It's no secret that it's been gloomy and wet here for the past several days. Last night I fell asleep to the soothing sounds of rain falling on the roof... all day today I looked out the window and was fairly unphased by the continuing rainfall. That changed a little when I went outside. The window I have been looking out faces in one direction and that direction was fairly benign, it reassured me that the lake is several yards away and while there were puddles and everything was muddy, I had nothing to worry about.

The window behind the television would have told me a slightly different story... had it not been almost completely obscured by the television and foggy condensation on the windows. There were several large puddles out there, seemingly all converging into one large puddle, and one of them appeared to be connecting with the lake. The lake is pretty low so I really wasn't worried that it would flood and I still don't think it will for the most part, but that one large puddle was slightly unsettling. The water that worried me most, however, was the pool my two front jacks were sitting in, which was about two inches deep a few hours ago. So I freaked out, and you really can't blame me given our recent run of bad luck. I called the front office and asked if I should be worried. I even started putting things away so I could move. They sent someone out and said I should be fine, that I'm actually better off than a lot of the people here. It didn't reassure me much, especially since he didn't stop in to pass that information along; I had to call back and then they told me he'd been by. He said he'd let me know if I needed to move, and said they'd help me do it if it came to that.

What actually helped (somewhat) was getting in the truck and going to the office to pick up a package and take some trash to the dumpster. When I came back I had to drive down the road where all the puddles are, and they hadn't actually crossed the road, it just looked like they had because of the way the light reflects off of the wet pavement. I'm also in a spot that doesn't drain well, and looking around I'm in good company. It's just that I'm nearer to the lake than they are... and the angle I'm facing plays tricks on the eye. That's not to say I'm not sitting here at 1 a.m. wishing the rain would stop... but looking at the forecast, it's probably not going to until tomorrow morning, or rather, the percentages drop around 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. And then it gets colder.

Huntsville is icy and has gotten some sleet. A little further west they have had snow and power outages. Speaking of which, my power cord is off the ground, away from the puddles. I at least thought that far ahead, but when the rain abates I'm going to check it again... and I think it just did.

This is a zoomed in shot from earlier... around 5 p.m. You can see the puddles. The foremost part of the picture is, I think, wet pavement and not actual standing water, but you can also see where it appears that the lake is part of the puddle.

This is the living room end of our 5'er with a window that looks out to one (muddy) side and the other window faces the road and a part of the park that isn't riddled with standing water. The front window that you can't see is facing out toward the tree, which is where all the water is. There is a puddle underneath me, but the swath that goes across the picture to the right is wet road with a couple of small puddles. So it looks bad, and in some respects is bad, but is not as terrifying as it seemed at first.

We just need a reprieve from the rain for a while so the water can soak into the ground or wherever it goes. We seem to get that in half hour increments, an hour if we're lucky. Right now there is a lull and I'm hoping the percentages hit somewhere else for a while. I have heard that a 50% chance of rain means that 50% of the viewing area is likely to get rain... it is someone else's turn (and it doesn't have to all be dumped in one spot... share the love... I don't want anyone else to flood tonight either!). Anyway, I can see all the jacks now, so the water has receded a bit, and my power cord is still fine. I'm going to be hoping for clear, cool skies for the rest of the night.

Until then I'll attempt to get further along in my story. I have five pages now and had a good rhythm going with a couple of paragraphs that I was proud of. I'm thinking it's best to write scenes in tandem with my current mood, so tonight promises to be dark and scary. I liked the funny and snarky I had a couple of nights ago.

And I'm serious about the pontoons this time... because here it comes again...