Dry and Alive - for the Moment

I really need to pay attention to current events, instead of merely scanning the online weather forecast. The forecast called for rain. Current events said the remnants of a tropical depression would pass over. Not that knowing in advance would've kept me any drier, mind you.

One of my crews accomplished very little yesterday, short of continually driving around campus, in case one of the storm drains got clogged by fallen leaves. While they were dry and sitting down, the other crew and I were in ankle-deep water on the athletic fields, emptying the trash cans and turning them over, so they wouldn't get even more water in them. (Not only are they very heavy, the anaerobic decomposition of whatever organic materials are in them makes them smell nasty.) Mind you, I'm not sure they stayed turned over, since they were on the verge of floating in the first place, and it became windy overnight.

The power went out (twice) in my new office and the neighborhood where I live, but the rest of campus (which receives its electricity from a different direction) was unaffected. My office phone still doesn't work, since the campus computer department has to "reboot" it (the price of technology).

At the end of the day, I went home and tossed everything I was wearing, except my raincoat (which I didn't want to melt) and work shoes (which I didn't want to make an infernal clunking and possibly damage the machine) in the dryer. Gosh, toasty-warm underwear sure feels nice! I think it took an hour for my feet to dry, though.

More rain today and tomorrow, which is no surprise, since there has been some form of precipitation for the last 24 hours. Mind you, I'm not whining; I do realize that many other people are worse off because of actual hurricanes, and not the remnants of one.