Puddle

I have never ever been one to hop out of bed the first time the alarm goes off. I shamelessly admit that I am a habitual snoozer. Usually hitting the snooze button just once is good enough for me, but on chilly, rainy mornings it takes at least two hits to get me moving. This morning was particularly tough because the sound of the wind and the rain from the Nor'easter pounding at our windows just made me want to get even cozier and forced me to pull the covers up closer under my chin for just one more snooze. By the time I finally crawled out of bed, I was already 15 minutes behind schedule. While this is really not such an unusual occurrence for me, I also had the additional burden of having to iron my dress for work. By the time I got downstairs I had exactly 10 minutes to fix my two coffees (the giant one for work and the slightly less giant one to wake me up), slap on some make up and dash out the door. Imagine my horror when I looked out back and discovered that the wind had torn our pool cover up on one side, making it likely that our pool cover would soon take flight. I threw on my shoes and rushed onto the porch. That's when I discovered that the rain had turned our yard into a lake. Standing on the bottom step, I heard an ominous warning:

Ah wouldn't take one more step, if ah was you. (I looked down and noticed a deep, deep puddle which, oddly enough, sounded just like Al Gore.)

Thanks for the warning, but I really have to go fix that cover. Maybe I can just jump over you.

And end up in the bushes? Ah rather think not. (He definitely spoke an inconvenient truth. By this time I looked and felt like a drowned rat - my freshly ironed dress was soaked, but unwrinkled. I'm afraid I took out some of my frustrations on the poor puddle. )

What's with all this stupid, lousy weather anyway? I've lived in this area all my life and NEVER experienced weather like this. I mean, we even get tornadoes here now!

Ah know what you mean, believe me. But ah am just a small result of the global community's failure to take quick action to curb the continual polluting of the atmosphere thereby making it probable that major natural weather catastrophes will likely occur more regularly and in unexpected places.

(I stood there in the wind and the rain, awestruck by the wisdom of the puddle in front of me.) Wow. That's really deep.

Well, ah am a deep puddle.

So, um, any idea how much longer this particular Nor'easter will keep up? I do have the pool cover to consider, you know.

Ah'll put it this way. Ah'd just go to work if ah were you. The rain's going to get pretty hard over the next four days so it'll just weigh the cover down so much that it'll be too heavy for the wind to blow it away.

Great. Thanks. Now I'll just worry about the pool overflowing.

(I went to work, weary that it seemed that there was nothing else I could do. Then I went to Blog Action Day and realized that I, too, could be as deep as that puddle.)