Thursday, June 09, 2005
Rain, rain, go away!
Wow. It rained here in Alberta. And when I say “rained”, I actually mean it rained like there was no tomorrow. It really, really rained. We got a whole month’s worth of rain in one week. It rained steadily from last Thursday to yesterday, and may rain a bit more today and for the next few days.
As you know, I manage condominiums, and people in condos like their grass to be green. We had an “early spring”, in that the weather warmed up and the snow melted in April rather than in May, and we never got our late May snowstorm, so by mid-May, the grass was nice and Alberta-Brown. I’ll let you in on a little secret here, I love the colour of our grass here in Alberta. It isn’t green at all. It’s kind of a nice neutral beige-y-brownish colour, and it looks warm and dry. Kind of like straw or hay, after it has been cut and sitting in the barn for a while. Nice. Comforting to me. But not to condo-dwellers, no. They like their damn grass virulent green. If their grass is not a deep, chemically-induced horrible green colour, they call me on the phone crying about watering. “Why can’t we water? We don’t care if there is a water shortage. We need LUSH GREEN GRASS OR WE WILL ALL DIE!!”
All these fool people were running around in May sacrificing chickens and pigeons and goats, and praying to the rain gods dancing and chanting like idiots. It seems that the rain gods heard all of this ruckus and said “Oh, you want rain, do you? WELL HERE!” and threw the stuff down in bucketfulls.
I have an issue with the rain. I don’t like it. The Tiny Car doesn’t like it. I have a deep-seated fear of driving in the rain due to a little hydroplaning incident in 2003. Due to severe tire wear (they were referred to as “slicks” after we looked at them later) I spun right off the road, and collected a large amount of grass in the Tiny Car’s undercarriage to the point where, as I sped off once I got back on the road, I thought to myself, “perhaps the poor Tiny Car will just spontaneously combust from heating up all this grass stuffed into every orifice in the car, and I will be driving down the road in a blaze of glory”. Luckily that did not happen. All that came of the event is that I now possess a blinding fear of driving in the rain.
And having survived that, I notice that whenever I hit large amounts of water on the road, the car doesn’t handle well, and all I can imagine is the Tiny Car spinning out of control into other cars, medians, cement walls, etc. So I do not like the rain at all. I’m not a fan of water in general – I don’t like getting wet in the shower, I don’t like getting water in my eyes at all. The only sort of swimming I actually enjoy (without goggles) is in those new salt-water pools where the water doesn’t sting the hell out of my eyes. I don’t like the cold feeling you get from being wet and having to dry off. It’s unpleasant, and it makes me uncomfortable.
I also do not like the rain because when it rains, stuff leaks. All those people who live in condos and were praying for rain now have leaks in their basements, windows and roofs, and who do you think they call about them? That’s right. Me. Not only do I have numerous basement leaks from all this water, several small roof leaks and a number of windows and frames leaking water, I had a fairly sizeable sewer main back up into seven units the other day. Those poor people, aside from being wet and miserable from the deluge of rain, ended up with sewage in their basements. YUCK. And the guy I have who does repairs, Tom, who is an excellent tradesperson and does knock himself out getting these things fixed, is swamped, both literally and figuratively. He was soaked to the bone during the rainy days, and also braved the sewer backups as well.
It has been busy in the office, which cuts into my slacking-off time. I have to actually answer the phone and do work and stuff like that, and it’s kind of annoying.
The other reason I do not like the rain and the grass being made green again is that the poor bunnies are all so visible now it’s ridiculous. They’re out there, all decked-out in their nice summer coats that are BROWN and CREAM COLOURED, and they stick out like sore thumbs in the middle of these insanely green lawns. I suppose this gives them more to eat, but they’re sitting ducks with no camouflage whatsoever. The only comfort is that the coyotes are all in the same boat, so theoretically, the rabbits would see ‘em coming from a mile off. And while the coyotes can see the rabbits now, the rabbits might have a chance of getting away from those jaws of death. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the coyote, but I also like to see the bunny who lives one street over every day when I come home from work. He’s a lot easier to spot these days.
Additionally, in the rain, you cannot garden. And so the poor garden lies there, mostly finished but not quite, and although this is perfect weather for growing things because you don’t have to water them with the hose and the fancy new sprinkler we just bought, you do have to plant them first. Which I have not yet done. I’m told we can plant through June and still have things grow alright, but time’s a-ticking away.
The dogs don’t seem to mind the rain when they’re out there, but the house is a disaster zone because when they come inside, their clunky feet are all muddy and they have to sit and have ‘em cleaned off, which they do not like, and then they track dirt into the entire house anyway. They get pretty soggy, and cold, so we’ve kept them inside for the past week. Cooter is starting to lose his mind, and chases all of the cats around and even broke his fantastic streak of not chewing anything. He utterly destroyed Rob’s fake leather-bound notebook that matches the one Rob got me (so now we only have the one) and shredded the cover into teeny-tiny little bits. That was on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, he managed to get into a bag of potatoes that we had inexplicably left lying around, and he spread the potatoes all around the house. Every room had a potato in it. The kitchen, the bathroom, the living room… all with the potatoes everywhere. He did not eat them, he merely gnawed on most of them. I’m not sure if the NoodleDog was complicit in that – although the event involved food, it wasn’t food the dogs would eat, so he might have had nothing to do with it.
The NoodleDog isn’t feeling well. He had been a little sick after we got back from camping, and I worried that maybe he had ingested something bad out in the forest, but he bounced back for a couple of weeks and has been fine up until this morning, when he didn’t eat his breakfast. He usually eats his breakfast and will even eye up Cooter’s, but this morning, after they went for a walk with Rob, he just came into the bedroom and went back to bed. Poor guy, I can tell he’s not feeling well. He just looks sad. We are keeping an eye on him and will spirit him off to the vet tonight if he’s not his normal self. We left him inside, of course, but we left Cooter outside today since the rain has let up and he clearly needs the break from inside, as do the cats.
So here’s to some hot, dry Alberta-style summer weather. May all your grass turn a nice golden brown!!
As you know, I manage condominiums, and people in condos like their grass to be green. We had an “early spring”, in that the weather warmed up and the snow melted in April rather than in May, and we never got our late May snowstorm, so by mid-May, the grass was nice and Alberta-Brown. I’ll let you in on a little secret here, I love the colour of our grass here in Alberta. It isn’t green at all. It’s kind of a nice neutral beige-y-brownish colour, and it looks warm and dry. Kind of like straw or hay, after it has been cut and sitting in the barn for a while. Nice. Comforting to me. But not to condo-dwellers, no. They like their damn grass virulent green. If their grass is not a deep, chemically-induced horrible green colour, they call me on the phone crying about watering. “Why can’t we water? We don’t care if there is a water shortage. We need LUSH GREEN GRASS OR WE WILL ALL DIE!!”
All these fool people were running around in May sacrificing chickens and pigeons and goats, and praying to the rain gods dancing and chanting like idiots. It seems that the rain gods heard all of this ruckus and said “Oh, you want rain, do you? WELL HERE!” and threw the stuff down in bucketfulls.
I have an issue with the rain. I don’t like it. The Tiny Car doesn’t like it. I have a deep-seated fear of driving in the rain due to a little hydroplaning incident in 2003. Due to severe tire wear (they were referred to as “slicks” after we looked at them later) I spun right off the road, and collected a large amount of grass in the Tiny Car’s undercarriage to the point where, as I sped off once I got back on the road, I thought to myself, “perhaps the poor Tiny Car will just spontaneously combust from heating up all this grass stuffed into every orifice in the car, and I will be driving down the road in a blaze of glory”. Luckily that did not happen. All that came of the event is that I now possess a blinding fear of driving in the rain.
And having survived that, I notice that whenever I hit large amounts of water on the road, the car doesn’t handle well, and all I can imagine is the Tiny Car spinning out of control into other cars, medians, cement walls, etc. So I do not like the rain at all. I’m not a fan of water in general – I don’t like getting wet in the shower, I don’t like getting water in my eyes at all. The only sort of swimming I actually enjoy (without goggles) is in those new salt-water pools where the water doesn’t sting the hell out of my eyes. I don’t like the cold feeling you get from being wet and having to dry off. It’s unpleasant, and it makes me uncomfortable.
I also do not like the rain because when it rains, stuff leaks. All those people who live in condos and were praying for rain now have leaks in their basements, windows and roofs, and who do you think they call about them? That’s right. Me. Not only do I have numerous basement leaks from all this water, several small roof leaks and a number of windows and frames leaking water, I had a fairly sizeable sewer main back up into seven units the other day. Those poor people, aside from being wet and miserable from the deluge of rain, ended up with sewage in their basements. YUCK. And the guy I have who does repairs, Tom, who is an excellent tradesperson and does knock himself out getting these things fixed, is swamped, both literally and figuratively. He was soaked to the bone during the rainy days, and also braved the sewer backups as well.
It has been busy in the office, which cuts into my slacking-off time. I have to actually answer the phone and do work and stuff like that, and it’s kind of annoying.
The other reason I do not like the rain and the grass being made green again is that the poor bunnies are all so visible now it’s ridiculous. They’re out there, all decked-out in their nice summer coats that are BROWN and CREAM COLOURED, and they stick out like sore thumbs in the middle of these insanely green lawns. I suppose this gives them more to eat, but they’re sitting ducks with no camouflage whatsoever. The only comfort is that the coyotes are all in the same boat, so theoretically, the rabbits would see ‘em coming from a mile off. And while the coyotes can see the rabbits now, the rabbits might have a chance of getting away from those jaws of death. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the coyote, but I also like to see the bunny who lives one street over every day when I come home from work. He’s a lot easier to spot these days.
Additionally, in the rain, you cannot garden. And so the poor garden lies there, mostly finished but not quite, and although this is perfect weather for growing things because you don’t have to water them with the hose and the fancy new sprinkler we just bought, you do have to plant them first. Which I have not yet done. I’m told we can plant through June and still have things grow alright, but time’s a-ticking away.
The dogs don’t seem to mind the rain when they’re out there, but the house is a disaster zone because when they come inside, their clunky feet are all muddy and they have to sit and have ‘em cleaned off, which they do not like, and then they track dirt into the entire house anyway. They get pretty soggy, and cold, so we’ve kept them inside for the past week. Cooter is starting to lose his mind, and chases all of the cats around and even broke his fantastic streak of not chewing anything. He utterly destroyed Rob’s fake leather-bound notebook that matches the one Rob got me (so now we only have the one) and shredded the cover into teeny-tiny little bits. That was on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, he managed to get into a bag of potatoes that we had inexplicably left lying around, and he spread the potatoes all around the house. Every room had a potato in it. The kitchen, the bathroom, the living room… all with the potatoes everywhere. He did not eat them, he merely gnawed on most of them. I’m not sure if the NoodleDog was complicit in that – although the event involved food, it wasn’t food the dogs would eat, so he might have had nothing to do with it.
The NoodleDog isn’t feeling well. He had been a little sick after we got back from camping, and I worried that maybe he had ingested something bad out in the forest, but he bounced back for a couple of weeks and has been fine up until this morning, when he didn’t eat his breakfast. He usually eats his breakfast and will even eye up Cooter’s, but this morning, after they went for a walk with Rob, he just came into the bedroom and went back to bed. Poor guy, I can tell he’s not feeling well. He just looks sad. We are keeping an eye on him and will spirit him off to the vet tonight if he’s not his normal self. We left him inside, of course, but we left Cooter outside today since the rain has let up and he clearly needs the break from inside, as do the cats.
So here’s to some hot, dry Alberta-style summer weather. May all your grass turn a nice golden brown!!
