A Small Moment

I am often in classrooms during writing time so I've heard teachers from Kindergarten to 3rd grade tell their students to write about a "small moment" that really happened to them. I think they do this right at the beginning of the school year because kids find it more interesting to write about something they did over the summer than the mundane of the school year. Typically my week is rather mundane, but this week didn't feel that way at all. So here's small moment from the week that held many more.

Monday morning I woke up to the sound of thunder and rain on the roof. It has rained so much during September that Mario asked me one morning if it was rainy season. I told him this isn't normal and that this is a record breaking month in a year when we've received over 16 inches more than normal. My first stop Monday morning was the doctor's office. By the time I got in the door, I felt like a wet dog as I took off my rain jacket and gave it a good shake so I wouldn't drip all the way to office on the 2nd floor. When I came out, only a light sprinkle was falling. However water was running along the gutters and I took a couple of detours to avoid deeper water running across the street. In places water was gushing out of people's yards onto the street.

Once I got to the school I decided to set up shop at an empty table at the end of one of the hallways rather than going to my usual space out in a portable.  It was a wise choice as it rained all day alternating between sprinkles and what the French call "raining ropes". I watched the puddles in the playground turn to a lake and the low spots fill with water. The official total for the day was 2.07 inches but others reported over 4 inches in their rain gauge. The weather man expects the rain to continue for the next couple of weeks with an occasional day of sun in between systems. It looks like talk about the weather will continue to include comments about being thankful that it isn't snow, people telling their water-in-the-basement stories, and wondering how the farmers are going to harvest their crops.