Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Rainy Day Thoughts

It's been rainy most of the day. It started raining while I was on the way to work this morning (fortunately after I'd taken the recycling stuff to drop off!), it quit for a while and then it started up again. It's supposed to be rainy for the next few days. And if the hurricane hits Texas like it's supposed to, we'll be dealing with it in a few days as well. We need a few days of a nice, slow rain. Like today. Hurricanes do get up this far inland, but they are generally at tropical storm status by that point. But they can still be bad storms. We're used to bad storms, this is Tornado Alley after all.

Although I could probably do without having to unclog one of the rain gutters! For some reason this afternoon, I had the strongest feeling that I needed to go check the rain gutter the side of the garage. And I'm glad I did, it was clogged and running over. Bill got home just after I discovered it, so he got the ladder and unclogged it. And he discovered that it's also slightly loose at one end, he gave it a temporary fix and when it's stopped raining in several days, he'll see about a better fix.

While all that was going on, Otter was out driving. She got to drive in heavier traffic than she's been in, which was good for her. She also worked on parellel parking. And she learned about driving in the rain. The instructor said that she did pretty good. She has two more lessons, they are Tuesday and Thursday of next week. We might not be able to take her out for a few days, it depends on the weather. But she's going to start driving me to the store, when we go to church, etc. I don't take her to school every day, she rides the bus most days. But when I do take her, she'll be doing the driving. She says that she feels a lot more confident about it now. She is turning into a pretty good driver.
When winter finally shows up, she's going to get the ice driving lesson. I want her to be as prepared as she can be for that one, I had to learn it the hard way. When we moved to NE OK, it was at the end of February and while it was still cold at times there was no ice or snow to deal with that year where I had to drive in it. We had some winter weather, but I was not working yet and was able to stay home. The next year, I'd gone back to work and when we were expecting a bad ice storm Bill made a point of telling me as much as he could about how to drive in the stuff. But hearing about it and actually doing it are two very different things. My first ice driving experience happened because I was at work and I had no choice - I had to learn it and in a hurry. It started icing up and my boss told me to leave about 3:00, it took me 2 1/2 hours to get about 7 or 8 miles from my office to Otter's daycare. Then it took me a long time to get home, but I managed. I stopped at the grocery store up the street from the daycare because by that time, it was after 5:00 and the traffic was getting bad. I was nervous about driving in traffic with icy conditions, so I spent about an hour buying groceries, and by the time I got back on the road again there was very little traffic. So it worked out pretty good. And Otter is going to be taken out to the streets behind us and taught ice driving, because living up here it's a necessary survival skill!

Frasier and Maggie have spent quite a bit of time this afternoon having a grooming session. They were running around chasing each other in the living room a few minutes ago, but they are back to grooming again. They are a very good pair, they get along so well. Better than just about any other dogs we've ever had, in fact. And they are very spoiled, which I think they know!
All day long, I've had to remind myself that it was actually Wednesday and not Thursday. For some reason, it felt like a Thursday. My boss had the opposite problem, he kept thinking that it was Wednesday. I just wish it were Friday!
OK, both doggies are now snoozing. They are both in the floor next to me, head to head. They're so cute.
Well, Bill's making hungry noises so I guess I'd better get this posted! I have to feed him occasionally, after all. :)

No comments: