I'm gonna need a bigger boat!

Okay. I'm late. Tardy. Running behind. Overdue. Forgetful. Hey. Wait a minute. How'd that get in there? But I pinky swear that once you've heard the story behind my laxness at posting today, all will be forgiven and by the end of this post you'll be in awe at my ability to sit at a computer and type a coherent sentence. All right. Semi-coherent.

You see Monday I accepted a job offer with the State. The job is pretty much designed for me. Writer friendly hours. Cool uniform so no stressing about what to wear, what to wear. Doing very classified stuff. As in, if I told you, I'd have to off you.

And it was time to celebrate!

But I had night class Monday night so no chance to Snoopy Dance.

So my daughter and I are driving back from class at 11 P.M. (she's taking a psych class) and we drive right into the middle of one of the worst thunderstorms I'd witnessed and for sure the worst my daughter had ever seen judging from her screams. The lightning was almost non stop and lit up the sky for incredible periods of time. In some respects, I was thankful because the lightning provided the only means of seeing the highway through the torrential downpour. We arrived home safe and sound, but a little freaked out.

And still it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

Now you all have heard about the flooding in my neck of the woods. Right? Billions of dollars worth of damage in one of our biggest cities. Well, in the past I've had some not-nice experiences with basement flooding so I kept an anxious vigil over the basement--until about 3 A.M. when I conked.

At 6 the next morning, you could do a backstroke in my basement. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but if you'd had my history with two parts of Hydrogen and one part Oxygen you'd classify 4 inches of water all through the basement as being an Olympic sized swimming pool, too.

Now, I'd had big plans for Tuesday. I was going to celebrate the new job with a nice meal out. Take my kid to see this real cool car we'd seen the day before. Go to the cemetery and collect dead people data for my night class. Finish up a Power Point for another. And write.

Instead, I spent a good portion of the day sucking water out of the basement. You're asking why the heck doesn't she get a sump pump, right? Uh. 'cuz the water ain't groundwater, folks. It's from--the other place. That's right. The sewer.

I suppose I should count myself lucky that it was the water coming into the sewer (i.e. unflushed) pouring into my basement as opposed to the water going out and, therefore, relatively clean.

But I wasn't feelin' lucky.

While the pump was doing its thing I called the car salesman about the car. You know. The car that was being sold to someone else while I was sticking a garden hose through my basement window screen and pointing it down the driveway. That car.

I spent the rest of the day pumping and wet-dry vacuuming until I remembered I didn't have the tombstone data for my lab which was due the next day. I needed at least 200 samplings for my lab. So, my son and I take our clipboards and data sheets to the graveyard that evening and started jotting down birth and death info. It was a good thing nobody else came to the cemetery while I was there. I'm sure as scary as I looked they would have thought it was a remake of the Living Dead.

'I'm coming for you, Barbara.'

Bone dead--uh, let's change that to 'weary', I showered and dropped into bed too tired to do anything with my data of the dead. Wednesday morning rolls around. I have an appointment with a plumber and hours of lab stuff to do before 5.

And a return visit to the wildlife refuge to look forward to.

The same refuge I'd visited three weeks earlier with some unpleasant parting gifts. When I say I had chiggers up the whazoo, folks, I mean it. Too much info? Sorry.

But this week? This week I was determine to best the fiendish parasites. I showered off any trace of my vanilla butter creme body splash, doused myself from head to toe with Deet, and stuck great big rubber bands on the bottom of each pants leg to keep unwanted pests out.

You shoulda heard the snickers when my fellow students got a look at me. But was I ever glad I had taken precautions. I was up to my armpit in prairie plants. You name it. I fought my way through it. I knew just how those early pioneers felt hacking their way through the thick vegetation on their trek across the Great Plains.

But Marquette and Joliet I ain't.

I dragged my rear home and showered again and hit the sheets.

Fast forward to today. I have a hair appointment at 8. A trip to the car dealership at 9:30. I need to mow the lawn before the city Waste Water guys show up right after lunch to show me where my sewer line runs. (I'm a lucky, lucky woman.) I have car insurance to change--my son found a car he liked--plus another trip to the cell phone store to get a new cell phone, mine having gained entry into this country via the Mayflower.

And I haven't bought new underwear for the new job yet! Which is like required for the first day of anything. Right?

So, there you have it. All the reasons why I totally spaced off my blog day until now.

Am I forgiven?

Is there anything crazy going on in your life right now? Any trials and tribulations you'd like to share? Drought? Wild fire? Bed bugs? Any crisis not averted?

Please. Share.

I could use a little cheering up.

~Bullet Hole who has no idea why the spacing is all screwed up here and is too tired to give a rip~