Hurricane Season

For those of you who don't watch/read international news, we are in hurricane season right now. Most hurricanes come up the east side of the continent and enter the Guf of Mexico. So, none of the actual hurricanes hit us here. However, we get the nasty side effects...days and days of pouring rain. Today is the first day it hasn't rained (knock on wood) in a WEEK AND A HALF! And I'm not just talking a shower or two in the morning and a dry afternoon. I'm talking...pouring rain twenty four hours a day.

Although the rains have had serious consequences for other parts of the country (mud slides, flooding, etc.), we have been pretty lucky here. The problems we have are more like minor inconveniences compared to what others have to deal with. However, those minor inconveniences are starting to stress me out.

1. I had no idea how depressing it can be to have rain all day, every day. I never appreciated how wonderful it is to have sunshine!

2. I don't have a clothes dryer. I usually hang my clothes outside to dry. What does a person do when it is raining? Two options...hang your clothes inside to dry or don't wash them. At first, I tried the don't-worry-about-doing-laundry-today option. I thought we would have rain for a day or two. I figured I could just get caught up when the storms passed. After three days, I ralized it wasn't going to pass. So, I resorted to the hang-the-clothes-inside-the-house-to-dry option. But even inside the house, the air is so wet the clothes will never dry. As a result, I have the same wet clothes on the line that I put there last week. Because things aren't drying, I can't wash more. I only have so much space to hang clothes inisde the house. Because I can't wash the dirty laundry, I am starting to run out of certain things. Like pajamas. I only have three pairs. For the last several days...I've been wearing Hugo's gym shorts. We are almost out of those too. And jeans. I didn't bring many pants with me because I figured I was moving to a tropical country...it shouldn't be cold here. Wrong. It has been freezing all week. And there is no way I can wear Hugo's pants if mine run out! And socks. Poor Hugo. All of his work socks (the tall ones he can wear with his boots) were on the clothes line, wet. I knew he was going to need socks the next day, so I put a fan on them over night. The next morning, they were still wet. I tried drying them with my hair dryer. Twenty minutes later...still soaked. We even tried ironing them. Nothing. Hugo had to wear those little ankle socks with his boots because we couldn't get anything dry enough.

3. My towel never completely dries. Every day, I get out of the shower and reach for my still damp towel.

4. The roof leaks...on my pillow. The roof doesn't usually leak, but days and days of pouring rain can seep through even the best construction. I woke up at 3am the other day to find my pillow soaking wet. Because it won't stop raining long enough for Hugo to crawl on the roof and fix the problem, all we could do was move the bed and put out a bucket.

5. All public and privat schools were canceled for the rest of the week. Like I said, we have been pretty lucky here. But there are other places in the country where it is very dangerous to travel. So, the government decided to close all schools to make sure everyone stays safe. Fine and dandy. Shouldn't affect me much. Wrong. What happens when all the neighborhood kids are stuck inside their house with nothing to do? They play music really loud. When one kid turns his stereo on loudly, the next kid has to turn his up even more to be heard over the first kid's. The kid across the way has to turn his up really, really loud to be heard over the first two. You get my drift. It is so loud during the day, I actually get excited when the rain picks up. I would rather hear the pounding rain than the deafening music of my neighbors.

6. It stinks...literally. Everything smells wet and moldy. The walls are wet. The floor is wet. Everything is wet. Even if we do have a few days without rain, I think it is going to take awhile for things to really dry out. By the time they dry, it will probably start raining again!