Soggy Blog

When we were on our Carnival cruise to Mexico we went through a tropical storm that had a name. Even if it wasn't much of a storm, having a name makes it significant. I should name storms at home instead of needing to refer to them as “the time that....” As in the time that the the top our grand fir crashed down and hit the neighbors' roof while Katherine was in the bathroom beneath the place it hit or the other time the top of our grand fir blew off and went through the neighbor's roof, and wasn't it lucky that no one was home.
I wouldn't name Bellingham storms after people though. I think I would call them after fruits or vegetables like Windstorm Artichoke or Drenching rain Avocado. I don't know about going in alphabetical order because a minor storm might end up as Blood Orange while a roof flattening wind might be Honeydew.
So I've been through a tropical storm. Everything was just gray and sloshy. The ship barely moved back and forth. When something is the size of three football fields long and thirteen stories high- it takes a lot to sway it. BTW there is no '13th' story because the numbers start at zero. Compared to autumn storms in Bellingham, it was very hard to get excited about.
The cruise director 'Goose' added some excitement by periodically announcing that we shouldn't worry. By the third time he said that I was wondering if things got bad would he tell us- okay now worry. And what was I supposed to not be worrying about? He wasn't specific so maybe if things got bad enough to worry about I would have to come up with my own ideas. Then I wondered if I should come up with some ideas before it was actually time that I needed them to worry about.
Tropical storm Olaf barely deserved a name, but at least it taught me that storms need names. Last night we finally got some long hoped-for rain. Funny thing to say since I live in a rain forest, but true anyway. At first it was just normal rain, but by midnight I unblocked a back door in the basement to make sure the drain was working. Rain was pouring down so fast that the gutters couldn't carry it away fast enough. Okay, standard rain and the drain was working. I went to bed dreaming all night about walking through sheets of water.
That dream came true. Sometime during the night the drain fields couldn't handle it anymore and water filled my driveway and the entry at my basement door. We were flooded from two directions.
So my first official named storm is Drenching rain Abalone. (I'm going with water animals for wet storms.) On a scale of one to five, Abalone was a class three water event.
There was also a huge wind storm before we got home from our trip. It blew down trees and closed roads. Since I wasn't here, I didn't name it.

Nancy Sherer