The wettest June

This June, the weatherman said, has been the wettest on record for our area. And I believe it. Everything around me is soaked and humid and muddy. Ugh.

According to the newscast, it's rained for 18 days this June, and so far this year has dumped more than 28 inches of water on us. Of course, we have nothing to complain about compared to all those other areas here in Ohio and beyond where there has been severe and tragic flooding. But both my husband and I are rather tired of this gringo version of Macondo.

In our house in the tiny city, the rain has meant a lot of corre corre to prevent a leak that we can't seem to plug up in the basement. It's not a major problem except when the rains become tropical storm-like (which has been the case with the recent storms that have passed by), and then we have a small catarata.

I called a basement water-proofing service and they said they don't deal with those kinds of leaks and that the only thing we could do was caulk the hell out of it and, if that didn't work, pour a new set of concrete stairs outside the house (from where the leak originates). That was helpful (can you hear the sarcasm dripping?).

Here at the little apartment in the woods at my small college on the hill, wetness means more creepy creatures trying to make their home inside my home. Tonight I evicted the fifth or sixth "house centipede," a tiny monster whose looks are pretty awful but which (thankfully) doesn't fly.


Still, I keep my Buddhist pledge, and despite being the bug psycho that I am, I manage to get them into my insect-eviction jar and out of the apartment as soon as I catch them. Recently, I also evicted an insect that looked like a cross between a wasp and a fly, which appeared to be carrying something in its jaws. When I got it into the trusty jar, it dropped its baggage and I saw that it was a dead spider. I felt bad about depriving it of its hard-won meal but it shouldn't have thought about making a life here in my apartment in the first place.

So far I haven't had to kill anything but that doesn't mean I won't. There was a huge (about an inch and a half big) mosquito-looking thing (except it was brown, not black) flying around a few nights ago and I chased it with the escoba until I lost it. I found it a few days later cowering on one of the legs of the kitchen table and, deciding to spare it, got it into my trusty jar and out of the apartment.

It's been hard keeping to my Buddhist creed, especially when every morning some type of spider falls on my head when I open the back or the front doors. The feeling of having something alive and multi-limbed scrambling around in my curly hair is pretty disgusting so you can imagine my alarm each and every morning this happens. I'm guessing the spiders (mostly "Daddy Longlegs") are seeking refuge from the wetness and are going to the top of the door frames for warmth.

I'm sure hoping this wet spell ends soon and we get some real summer, except I hesitate to wish for that since in Ohio that means we'll go from floods to drought in a matter of minutes. Like Toni Morrison says, seasons in Ohio are "theatrical." Each one is decidedly a prima donna.

This is the last week of the summer program and the weatherman is forecasting rain again for the weekend. I hope July doesn't become a carbon copy of June, and that summer finally decides to grace us with its presence.

(Tonight I have the heat on -- yes, the heat -- because the temperature is expected to plummet to the low 50s).

Sigh. That's all I have to say about that.