Water Fall

February 8, 2013

The chocolate swirl cake overflowed onto the floor of the oven range as burnt dough permeated the air throughout the house. The neighbors are out of gas so they borrowed our oven. Rainy day cake swiftly turned sour. The maid was called from next door to clean up the mess.

Overflowing rows of plastic buckets line the edge of the verandah to capture the free drippings from the sky to use on a later date in the garden. In Port Townsend, Washington this is illegal. To create a private catchment system is inviting trouble. The water that falls from your rooftop belongs to the City and should be allowed to drift into the watershed or so the officials insist. In Hawaii the residents would not have sufficient water in the household without the ability to catch it from the sky to fill their enormous tanks alongside the house. Several of our close friends had to resort to purchasing water for their enormous tanks in times of drought. We got extremely creative with our savage rain dances and imploring prayers when the season was desert dry and thoroughly grim.

Tears of anger, overwhelm, depression, stress, physical pain, happiness, frustration, tragedy, joy, Kleenex commercials, and crying for seemingly no good reason are a relief. 60% of our body consists of water and 70% of our brain cells. Water is such an essential and influential part of our lives. As the rain pounds like the flood of tears and absorbs into the shallow clay soil, disappears nearly as quickly as it comes I consider the options for desalinization and trouncing the lack of drinkable water.

It continues to rain throughout the day and night. I am grateful for the accumulation in the watershed system. Hopefully we will not be suffering from lack of water every afternoon for a few more weeks.

Unfortunately the unrelenting rain is forecast to fall tomorrow and consequently my outdoor flea market excursion will be delayed until next Saturday afternoon.

The chocolate twist cake finished baking and was returned to the neighbors without a sampling…shoot! I would have had a slice with a tall drink of water.