Be Not Idle

The Clamster (aka Kasia) and her readers were talking about the consequences of consecutive rainy days in the urban landscape, and I was filled with nostalgia. A kind of “Thank God that’s past!” sort of nostalgia, to be sure, but it’s nostalgia nonetheless.

 I used to live in Warren, first by myself and then with the Baby Brother (and older brother, and friend M’e, and BB’s buddy Rob, and any other pal who needed to crash on the davenport for a few weeks or months**).  Days of heavy rain meant the storm sewers would overflow onto the road. If it didn’t happen on the commute to Troy, it happened before the commute home.

 On two non-consecutive years, I drove my car through an enormous puddle and stalled it until the engine compartment dried out. When it rained heavily for a few days, ants would come up from cracks in the slab, trying to escape the water. Once I woke up to a sound like irregular dripping from the bathroom. It wasn’t water but hundreds of winged ants flying and then falling back into the bathtub.   Come to think of it, that was just before the mouse moved in and the Baby Brother moved out, like a mini-Pestilence drama.

Now I live in a floodplain, but only because FEMA decided to extend it after I bought my house. My neighbours and I won’t buy the insurance because FEMA doesn’t pay unless over 50% of the house is underwater. The only way for that to naturally happen would mean the St. Clair River had flooded miles (or km) of inland Ontario and Michigan and overwhelmed the islands.

UNnaturally it would mean that when the Channel 4 chopper came over the area, they’d find me and my neighbors pumping water INSIDE our towering walls of sandbags to make the FEMA percentage requirements.

Seriously, the wetlands are intact here, so there are seldom standing puddles. The only downside is the high humidity near the marsh and the state park, as opposed to surrounding areas.  But that’s okay. I haven’t had to water my lawn yet and, so far, the mushrooms are minimal.

 **crash on the davenport = sleep on a fold-bed in a full-size sofa or couch) Sometimes my colloquialisms are indecipherable without footnotes!