It's been raining for most of the afternoon, and as night fell it brought with it thicker droplets to heave upon the parched, yet not thirsty, city. Tonight's is the first real rain we've had since I've returned from Europe.

Know how the physical subtext of certain events in life burden those physical conditions with a subtle, yet not ignorable, meaning? This rain makes me feel the way watching the flustered reporters on CNN did, as they hid behind post boxes during Hurricane Katrina's wrath: scared. Scared without something to blame. How can you fault the wind for blowing or the water for rising or the rain for falling?

I was Scared of the unknowable. Scared of the certainty of horrible things to come. Scared of not being scared enough to make a difference in my preparations the next time.

The streets were still driveable, with only the slightest gullies surprising my wheels here and there. And even though the weather forecasters have told me the rain will stop cascading by the sun's rise, I see my neighbors' FEMA trailers standing at attention along my path home like bright-eyed soldiers happy to be given an achievable mission, and I'm still scared inside.
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My absence of late is the responsibility of my upstairs neighbor, who suddenly realized last week, after 3 months, that he should secure his unsecured wireless network. I didn't want to break my golden rule -- accessing blogger from work -- so imagine my happy surprise to see that I can connect tonight. I think I might suck it up in the next month and just get my own internet :(

Now I'm going to relieve my overworked muscles and clear my stuffed brain - it's amazing how not writing for a week can make your mind swirl and feel fuller than a turkey at Thanksgiving - by joining Mr. Bubbles, some water, Catch-22, and Beethoven.

I put new pictures on Flickr: foiling my coworker's desk, the HoeDown in Ponchy two weeks ago, some from Cabining this past weekend in Cypremort State Park, and some random ones, too.

Tom has even more (especially cabining).