The aftereffects of rain

Rain, rain, rain...finally ending. It's supposed to be 97 and sunny today. Yes, I said 97. I had to look twice at the cable TV weather thingie to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Guess I'll leave the A/C on.

The rain has been good for some things and bad for others. Most of the tomatoes haven't ripened because the sun has refused to shine. I also lost a few garden plants to mold and insects. But everything certainly is green!

I got caught in a horrific rainstorm last night in Athens. In Greene County, the rain had ceased a whole day before, so I could have avoided it. But I had to choose that exact time to drive into Athens to deposit some checks and buy a few provisions. First I saw the lightning on the horizon, then I heard a severe thunderstorm warning on the radio. Suddenly, just as I entered the city limits, visibility dropped to near-zero and traffic slowed to a crawl. The ditches and gutters filled up and overflowed. A good six inches of water swirled over the ground, and more poured from the sky as though a heavenly bathtub had been overturned. By the time I got to the bank, I couldn't even get out of the car to run to the ATM--I just had to sit there for a few minutes and wait it out. Finally it slowed down some and I made a dash for it, but I ended up getting good and soaked anyhow.

In the liquor store, the kid behind the counter wasn't actually behind the counter; he was in the wine section, Shop-Vaccing a puddle and setting a bucket under a weak spot in the roof.

My car steamed up horribly--all Geos do that, dunno why--so I was forced to stop at Wal-Mart for a bottle of anti-fogging window treatment. I learned of the existence of this product from an episode of King of the Hill. (And they say TV is a waste of time!) It works. But then, everything Rain-X makes works. I never go on a roadtrip without some original yellow-bottle Rain-X rubbed into the windshield, because it makes the wipers superfluous even in the heaviest downpour.

All the Wal-Mart employees were jittery because, what with the holiday coming up, there was a big fireworks tent in the parking lot. The police had been hovering nearby (but not too nearby) during the storm, fearing that lightning would strike the tent and blow everyone to smithereens. Not a bad ending for a Wal-Mart, if you think about it...if only there were some way to get the people out first!

Of course I got home to find that nary a drop had fallen. There was a little fog. The lawn sat peacefully, un-squishy and freshly mowed, dotted with marshmallowlike puffball mushrooms from the recent rain.

UPDATE
They changed the forecast. Now it's supposed to be 93 with a chance of thunderstorms...for the foreseeable future. *sigh*