Rain, Rain Has Come to Stay

This is Utah. And it's June. And it's raining. Every day. How bizarre.The cats are disgruntled. Kate at High Altitude Gardening is grooched. Even I, rain lover that I am, am starting to weary of it. But sing out the mantra, sing it loud, sing it joyously:
"It's good for the flowers!"If ever I can find a dry day to get them into the sodden ground...

WithoutDoubt, the Worst Human Ever

Every once in a while, it does rain in Utah. Three years ago, when we were replacing the roof and all we had up top was studs and plastic, there was a three hour frog strangler. The whole house flooded, the living room ceiling collapsed onto the living room floor. That was one of the biggest "WHA-BOOM!!!" noises I've ever heard in my life. We ended up having to tear out most of the walls and ceilings in the house.

When it started pouring last night as I was out working in the garden, I grabbed up my stuff, tossed it into the shed and shut the shed door on my way into the house. It rained about an inch in half an hour.

This morning I got up and fixed kitty breakfast. No Kitsu. I opened the back door and called. A faint and pitiful meow came to my ears and I realized what I'd done.

Poor cat spent 14 hours locked in the tool shed. She's been Velcro kitty ever since. Velcro kitty with the smell of gasoline from the power tools wafting from her fur.

The Engineer called from London as she snuggled to my breast. She heard his voice on the phone and started telling him all about it, "Meow, wow, yow!" Which I took to mean, "Cruel female humie locked me in the shed! You would never do that."

Sigh.

Let's assuage my guilt with a picture of my yellow rose bush.
Much better.

Slogging on POTS in the Rain

My parents live way out in the boonies of western North Carolina. The same "good ol' boy" owns the small local telephone and cable companies - he has a monopoly on non-snail-mail communications in this neck o' the woods. My cell phone doesn't work at all unless I stand in the middle of the street and even then it only gets one or two bars. The only connection my parents can get to the internet is POTS, Plain Old Telephone Service.

AAUUGGGGGGG!!!

Now that that's out of the way...

The vacation is going well, I made all my flights, though I did have to do an 11 minute connection in Newark from one terminal to another when the first plane came in late. Made it as they were closing the door on the second plane. Then, of course, we sat on the tarmac for 40 minutes. That's air travel.

My parents are looking good and it's wonderful to see them after so long. (Even if they do have slower than slugs computers and slower than a glacier internet connection.) I love this area and would truly like to move back here some day if only I could convince the Engineer.

The rain has been following me around. It rained in DC for the first time in 34 days when I was there visiting GuiGrl and meeting Cicada. It rained in Charlotte for the first time in ages when I got there and it rained all the way on the drive out here to the western edge of the state. North Carolina has been in the worst drought in living memory, but I brought the rain.

For some reason, however, this rain magic does not seem to work when I'm on my home turf - or, in the case of Utah, my home desert.

Ah well, I'm happy with bringing rain and friendship to the people I visit.