Soggy Ending

2005 is almost kaput. It has been quite a year, if I remember to straighten up and look back over it- most of the time I sort of feel like I'm trudging ahead, letting my eyes roam only over the next few steps ahead. If you do that while hiking, your neck gets sore and you miss all the good scenery.

It looks like New Years Eve will be a soggy one here. It may in fact be quite similar to the time I was visiting Grandma English and we watched the ball fall on TV. I say we, but she had dozed off in her chair.

Things are flooding all around here- I find that oddly exciting. It's mean of me, really, because I know if we didn't live on top of a hill then I'd be worrying like the folks around us must. A few miles down the road there's the little sad town of Turner. It features a train track, several stuffy pubs, two run-down mini markets and all of it tends to flood. There's a huge Tabernacle church building- pretty, really- and already the entire lot it's on is a lake.

Something about water overrunning boundaries makes me feel all biblical. The bridges around here are low and quaint- mostly cement with neat shapes cast in them, from earlier times. Since it's an agricultural area out here there are probably more chemicals being washed around with the silt than can be counted, but it LOOKS like nature gone wild. Everyone is talking about winter of '96, when the floods were the worst and bridges were washed out entirely. Mom and dad were surrounded by flooded roads- all 3 routes between them and town were covered.

Despite the chance of getting socked in, I am still taking herbs and pumping whatever I can get out of my boobs. Even in '96 they were able to get out because they drive big rigs, so I refuse to let up on my labor quest. It seems somehow appropriate to labor in a deluge.