Swimming lessons

As I'm typing this, thunder and lighting is raging around the house. Again. The dog is cowering and whimpering. Again. It's pouring down rain so hard we can barely hear each other speak. Again. It's been raining on and off for about four weeks now, and so all of this is very familiar. But what's scary is that during the past two days, things really seem to have taken a turn for the worse. The ditches on the sides of the roads have started to flood, the sewers decided they didn't want to stay behind either, and we have a little river running down our yard on the side of the house. Coincidentally, our kids started their second set of swimming lessons two days ago as well. Now I'm not saying these two are connected, but it is very suspicious that neither one of them wanted to go, and so far, all of their lessons have been canceled because of the rain.

Today actually started off pretty well. It was cloudy, but the little cherubs were actually able to make it into the outdoor pool for the first time without rain or thunder. The instructors actually got to hand out kickboards, and issue their first instructions when we all heard the first mild rumble of thunder. Base weather guidelines dictate that all pool activities have to be halted when thunder is heard within five miles, and although I'm not sure how lifeguards can hear the difference between thunder at say seven miles and four miles, they ushered all the kids out of the pool anyway. At first, husband-dear and I were slightly peeved, for lack of a better term. We grumbled that a little thunder on the other side of town never killed anyone, and that at this rate our kids would always look like little puppies in the pool; cute, but not very efficient. Our grumbling came to a quick halt, though, when the skies opened in true Georgia style, and the rain came pouring down on everything. Our car was parked as close to the pool as possible, and yet we were all soaked by the time we made it into the truck.

Now, at first we all thought it was funny. Sure, it was raining, again, but husband-dear and I had gotten our bike ride in earlier, and we figured that with any luck, we might even be able to set the pool up and let the rain fill it up at least half of the 4000 gallons the pool requires. The kids seem to embrace rain as an opportunity to huddle on the couch together and eat popcorn, so none of us thought of the rain as necessarily a bad thing. Until we got closer to our house, and realized how bad this downpour actually was. At one point, we couldn't see out the windows for the water that was splashing up from the road. When a thick current of water coming down a hill almost pushed us into a ditch, the fun was very clearly over. And the worst part came when we turned into our neighborhood and noticed that the water in the frontyards of three homes had gotten so high, it was flooding into people's houses.

It's ironic, really. When we first saw our house, husband-dear jokingly proclaimed this house would never work because the small hill that the house was built on meant he could not play basketball on the driveway. After his ever-practical wife pointed out that a) he never played basketball, and b) the house was perfect otherwise, husband-dear relented. But still, having a house situated on a little hill is not very practical. Balls will roll down the driveway into the street, and as we know kids and dogs will follow balls regardless of where they roll, not all of my friends like parking on a hill, and unloading can be a pain. But let me tell you something; as of today, I love our hill. True, the bottom of the driveway is a whirlpool of rain, ditchwater, and whatever pours out of the sewers, but at least we know that unless the rules of the universe are somehow reversed and gravity ceases to exist, it will all stay there, and not come near our front door. Cause dang it, call me selfish, but we just spend a heap of money on new wooden floors, and I will seriously pitch a fit if anything happens to those babies. So thank heavens for out hill.

But with all that said, I say it's high time the rain stops. I did not move to Georgia for the rain. Not that I moved to Georgia for any reason other than husband-dear's job, but that's beside the point. Holland equals rain. Georgia does not. Enough already! We have plants that do great without rain, our grass is made for the heat and sun, and I'm running out of dry shoes. So let's all please help out Dixiechick and do a little sundance around our keyboards.
Thank you.