Torrential Rain

We're back from CityOfMyBirth, having had a lovely time with my family over the long weekend. We got a large bunch of us together for a nice meal, and it was nice to sit and laugh about happy childhood memories.

The hotel was a zoo. Who knew when we made the reservation that two extremely large and obnoxious families had booked it for their family reunion? And that the local military installation had basic training graduation that same weekend? And doesn't it frost your noogies when the pool clearly has a sign posted that people under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult while swimming, but yet the pool was full Sunday night with seven children who were under the posted age and had no adult in sight? Said children were screaming so loudly in the enclosed pool that it sounded like hyenas shrieking over a kill, AND they were throwing around the plastic deck chairs, which they had placed in the pool. Between the chairs flying about, and them trying to drown each other, Offspring and I stood about 20 minutes of it and called it a night. As the capper, we were awoken last night by thunder so loud that JF honestly thought someone had driven a Hummer through our first-floor window. It sounded like cannon fire. It's hard to sleep when your heart is threatening to leap out of your chest like Baryshnikov.

We drove back home today in the torrential rain. It's expected to pour here for the rest of the week. How lovely.

JF noticed in USA Today that New Orleans is having a drought, and is down about 20 inches of rain below their yearly normal range -- if there's one city in the US right now that does *not* need any more water, it's New Orleans. Seeing some pictures of the 9th Ward, even a year later, doesn't begin to cover what horriffic damage was done there. I wonder if it will ever be the same again?

Hope all of you are well, and that no one else has to drive in such nasty weather!