Thunderbolts and Lightning...

I actually like the rain. It makes me want to snuggle up and read, and anything that makes me want to do that is good in my book.


I don't like floods or leaky basements though. See, there was this house in Richardson, a quadplex thingy, with a basement.


I'll give it a minute to sink in. A basement. In North Texas.


Yeah.


Anyway, said basement had no sump pump, concrete floors, and a leak.
When it would rain more than an inch or so, that inch would appear inside our basement. The landlord refused to fix it (and that, along with several other things made us get out of there as soon as our lease was up), so we would check the basement frequently during storms and invested in a wet-vac* (though certainly not soon enough).


We were also gifted this lovely thing called a Leak Frog. Bad puns aside, it was a semi-handy little invention utilizing fabulous science and so when there was enough water on the ground to complete the circuit between the little metal contact doo-hickeys, it would beep like a smoke detector. Mostly useful... except if you're asleep on the 2nd floor and it's beeping away in the basement. Not so useful then.


Now we live in a house with a backyard that misses being able to host Olympic ski-jumping by just a few degrees, but thanks to the wonders of French drains we don't have to worry about our living room becoming a water feature.


I don't particularly like being out in the rain, though I've gotten pretty used to it after several years performing at a renaissance festival. I know lots of kinds of rain--soft rain, mizzle, poky rain, cold rain, sideways rain... not quite as many types as Forest Gump, but still a wide variety of problematic precipitation.


Last week, while it rained outside, I had some delicious homemade hot chocolate mix and a snickerdoodle and some tacos, and watched the cold rain. It was dark out there, and I really wanted a blanky, a kitty, and a couch to curl up on.


Since that option wasn't available, I decided to settle for more hot chocolate.


And maybe another snickerdoodle.



*My husband insists that we didn't buy a wet-vac, but I'm certain we did.  This conversation followed.