It's Raining, It's Pouring

You know, I remember that once, there was a period of time between snow and snow when the Earth warmed up, the clouds departed for a bit, and the ground dried up a bit. It began with an S...

I saw summer briefly in July, when we went to Walla Walla for my brother's wedding. It was too hot, but otherwise glorious, and then we returned to discover that Anchorage had gone 32 days with precipitation every day. You read right: a solid month of rain at least once a day. Since then we've had some spotty sun, but it's mostly been dismal, and it's just pouring buckets outside at the moment. Buck. Ets. Big drops, too. It's raining so hard the DishNetwork has lost its signal.

I kind of wish I had something to bake, actually--it always takes my mind off the weather. Right now, though, I'm hanging out at the folks' house, revelling in the 23-13 victory that ND just had over Purdue. It's definitely a good start.

So, let's see--where to begin? We last spoke in June, and there is sadly little to share since then. Life as usual, really. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Toss cat in the dryer. Steam. Work. Sleep. Hang out.

Oh. You caught that, huh? Well, I was hoping you wouldn't but since you have, it was totally Jeremiah's fault in a way that makes it more my fault than his but easier to blame on him. You see, it all started with the dryer door.

The door on the dryer does not generally stay open, specifically because cats have a genetic attraction to all spaces warm and dark. They're like bats or bad politicians. The last thing we want to happen is for the cat to discover the lovely cave in the laundry room, so we're pretty good about closing the door. We also tend to close the door to the laundry room, because no one wants to look at the water heater or the old Rubbermaid pitcher catching the slow leak from the outlet pipe.

All that changed on Monday. On Monday, Jeremiah was in a hurry and pulled his shirt out of the dryer, forgetting to close the dryer. I was also in a hurry, though rather later in the morning, and didn't have time to iron, so I thought I'd steam my sweater. I left the cat on the bed, and went to wet a washcloth, tossing the cloth and my sweater into the dryer. I didn't even notice that the door was open.

Thump. Whir whir whir. Thump. I thought it must be shoes, though I couldn't remember either of us having a pair of shoes that wasn't leather or some imitation thereof. After about the fifth thump, though, something just wasn't right, so I stopped the cycle and opened up the door. One of the towels started moving, and I heard the most pitiful little yowl coming out of the cave. My heart stopped--my poor kitten! She stumbled out of the dryer onto the offending door, wobbly and whimpering. I just stood there for a second, tearing up and feeling awful and petting her to see if she was OK. I was late to work because we snuggled for a bit, just so I could watch and see if she was okay.

Thankfully, she was fine, and the rest of the week went much better than it started out. But suffice it to say that this blog entry is a) really just a chance to out myself before certain other people do it for me, and b) certainly enough to restart the blogging. I'll hit you up again on Monday, hopefully with more news and less trauma.