The Sky Is Falling

Here in the Northeast it's raining. Again.

Still.

Apparently continuously.

All of the local waterways, be they streams, rivers, ponds, or puddles, are well past their saturation points. I have never seen so much high water since we moved here. And tonight is a full moon. Does the full moon affect ponds and puddles, or just the oceans and other tidal bodies of water?

'Cause if it does we're up a flooded river without a paddle. Lucky for us we're on high ground. Our driveway is sinking, but the runoff is going to the neighbors. Possibly nobody deserves the runoff more than our neighbors. (Who said that?) Unfortunately for us, if this continues, it's the neighbors who have a boat in their driveway. Not us.

We have a hot tub. Does that count?

Three nights ago, the temps dropped into the low 20's. It was freakin' freezing. And the boy has a chest cough.

The good news is the daffodils don't seem to mind and they are withstanding the deluge beautifully so far. The robins seem happy as they pluck whatever it is they pluck from the ground. And the squirrels are as squirrely as you would expect a squirrel to be, so I guess this is all just spring stuff to them.

But it's so wet. So very wet. Sinkhole wet.

But at least it's not hot and humid and wet.

That would really suck. And that's what June is for.

Of Frogs, Ducks and Spring

It's been in the 60's here the past few days. And on my walk through the local nature center the other day I heard lots of ducks quacking. Only I couldn't see them.

"Odd," I thought, and kept walking.

I came to a larger body of water and the quacking cacophony was unbelievable.

Only, no ducks.

Being blessed with a brilliant mind, I deduced that the "quacking" was coming from the frogs.

It was like happy hour at the pond. "Hey, Baby," they were all saying. "Wanna date?"

I took the boy back there yesterday. It was, after all, the first day of Spring, and it was about 73 degrees out, thus making it an undesireable day to stay indoors, so I said "Hey, let's go for a walk and listen to the frogs." And we did.

I guess most of the froggies found themselves dates, because the noise wasn't as boisterous as it had been just a couple of days earlier. But you could still hear the bizzare quacking coming out of the pond.
We met up with another mom and with two girls and they showed us the motherload of egg sacks. There was a point in the pond where it narrowed and a tree branch was laying across the water and resting on the top. And there, under the branch, were countless numbers of greenish looking egg sacks. You could see all the tadpoles (tadpoles?) inside. Thousands of them. Waiting. They looked like alien egg pods waiting to hatch and overrun the human populations.

When finally the others left, we moved on to a hike in the woods and by the Vernal Pool, looking for the egg sacks of salamanders as well as more frogs. But we didn't find any.

The trip home was uphill and we were hot and sweaty by the time we got home.

Nature's pretty cool when you don't have to touch it.
 
Happy Spring

Hairbrained Ideas

Some days I feel like Lucy; cooking up another hairbrained scheme to get me into Ricky's show.

Ironically, I'm not usually a hairbrained kinda girl. A little too practical and a little too concerned about getting in trouble.

That "fear of authority" kind of thing.

But today, in one of those free-associating moments I had while waiting for some pasta in the microwave, I had a flash of genius. A great idea. It's so good that it makes absolutely no sense. I'm still trying to puzzle it out. My Puzzler is getting sore.

The nine year old in my life is helping me overcome my fear of hairbrained ideas. He's one of those kids who's brain never stops coming up with the next great idea. Even if it's something that he has no idea has already been invented. When he finds out it has been, he tweaks it and makes it his own. No fear. No trepidation. No follow-through.

Lucy had follow-through. I have to give her a lot of credit for that.

Of course, she is a cartoon.

My boy just has so many ideas. He never lets logic get in the way. And he never stops coming up with the next great thing.

That's why, when I had my hairbrained idea today, I sent an email to a friend and shared it with her.

She may never speak to me again.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

A couple of days ago I had a birthday. It was an adequate birthday. Nothing terrible happened. Nothing wonderful happened. It was just one of those days when there was too much other shit going on to be able to really make it about me.

My Dad got a cake for me. It was the only cake I got. It was all chocolatey and yummy and gooey.

I don't really like cake. I'm an ice cream kinda girl. But I love that my Dad got the cake for me. He does things like that.

Tomorrow will be about me. A facial early in the day, sushi for dinner. Mmmmm. Can't wait. I'm having a Homer moment just thinking about it.

Next year's birthday will be a milestone birthday. I want a party, dammit. A big, honkin' blowout. The squirrels are invited. We'll sit around, drink margaritas and eat nachos. Squirrels like nachos. I think.

Today, though, I have to clean up the water in the basement. We had an "incident" with a 2.5 gallon bottle of water.

But I'm thinkin' I'll just let it evaporate. I'm sick of trying to clean and maneuver around all of the damn boxes down there. Hopefully, that shit that got wet isn't mine. I've been getting smart and putting my stuff in plastic boxes. I've also been getting rid of a lot of it. Unlike that pack rat I live with. I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it. Good thing I have plenty of coffee.

Evaporation is the way to go. Now if only the laundry would evaporate.