Rain keeps falling...

Now that this week is over, and I've gotten my anniversary posts and guest bloggers out of the way, it's time to get back to writing, and sharing the exciting details of my rocket ship existence that keeps at least twenty people a day reading!

Yeah.

It rained here for well over a week. Today was the first time I'd seen the sun, and I was beginning to forget what it looked like. Various streets on Long Island were closed due to flooding, and I heard on the radio that New Jersey was in a state of emergency last night. I had two of every animal in my basement but didn't get around to building a boat, so I guess now I'll have to let them go.

With the rain came the cold, and while I'm sure we'll see some more warm days before winter hits, it was enough of a sign to get the house ready. I put away the screens for the year and put up the storm windows after washing them, and earlier tonight I washed the radiators in preparation for turning the heat back on. This is no small task for the typical single guy, who keeps more clothes stacked on a radiator cover than in the actual drawers of his dresser not five feet away. It took me an hour just to get to the radiator cover and get it out of the way. In the meantime, I continued catching up on The Sopranos on DVD. At some point I may rave about what an artistic masterpiece and intricately woven tapestry it is, but as of tonight I've only finished the first two seasons, and I want to avoid attracting comments that spoil who gets whacked when. Great show though: cast, plot, guest-stars, music and all. I started watching the third season a little while ago, and was in awe when they blended the ”Peter Gunn” theme(better known to people my age from the video game Spyhunter) with ”Every Breath You Take” by The Police during a surveillance sequence. It was remarkable. Peter Gunn played while the family drove. The Police played when the feds were following them. The songs came together seamlessly, and I wondered why I had never thought of mixing that particular chocolate with that particular brand of peanut butter. But, I digress.

The house is now nearly ready for winter, and the perils that come with it. Tomorrow I'll put up the last of the storm windows, and take a ladder around cleaning leaves from the gutters so we don't have any leaks. My office hasn't been as fortunate. The constant downpour took its toll this week, and around the top floor where we sit various leaks sprung up as the maintenance people came up with elaborate solutions using binder clips, plastic sheets, and waste baskets. In my section, where a leak was caused by work on a boiler over our heads a few weeks ago, I heard dripping through the drop ceiling, which still had panels moved aside from the last time. I knew our plastic recycling buckets, up there out of reach, were filling and in danger of coming through the ceiling, which was staining in a double omelet formation. I called to explain the problem, and the receptionist was very agreeable. “Yes, yes I bet you DO have a leak! This weather is terrible!” I asked her to send someone up with a ladder, at which point she said she would, but I had to do one thing--send an e-mail to her department saying EVERYTHING I'd just told her on the phone, just to follow protocol. I was dumbfounded. Had I suddenly fallen into the bureaucratic futuristic nightmare portrayed in Brazil? I sent the e-mail, and by lunch time neither phone call nor e-mail had been answered. I wasn't surprised. The last time I'd called this department to report an electrical shock, no one EVER returned my call. I guess when I didn't call back or die, they assumed all was well.

I went to lunch, ran some mysterious errands which I'll reveal in a few weeks perhaps, and when I came back I found the ceiling panels gone, with two buckets on the floor. One was askew of a drip, and the water was bouncing off the lip and onto the spines of my books on a nearby shelf. Between the buckets, softer drips could be heard as the water hit the unprotected carpet. I took some plastic garbage bags and taped them across my bookshelf, and I added buckets to the other drips while adjusting the bucket that wasn't quite under its assigned drip. When the rain keeps falling, sometimes a person has to take matters into his own hands to stay dry.