Snug and Dry

The incessant rain and torrential flooding here in Boulder has filled the national news for several days now. The university was closed both Thursday and Friday because of water damage to some quarter of the buildings on campus; many if not most of my friends are pumping thousands of gallons of water out of their basements; several deaths have been reported, including the great-grandson of a beloved member of my church. We have received more rainfall in the last few days than we usually get in six months. This is the "hundred-year floor" we've been warned about for decades. This is flooding of biblical proportions.

My own little house, however, is snug and dry. Not a drop of water has come in. This is chiefly for two reasons.

First, I have no basement, so ergo, I have no flooded basement. This has made a HUGE difference to my survival of the storm. For some time I have been regretting the fact that my house is so small, now that I have me and my husband, and our son and daughter-in-law, and Snickers-the cat, all living here in 1500 square feet, with an eagerly awaited grandchild due to arrive in March, and even the upcoming arrival of Ashley's little dog, Tank, who has been staying with other relatives while I decided whether I could try adding one more living creature to this tiny space. How nice it would be to have a basement so that the younger generation could disappear down there to watch movies or play video games! Wouldn't that be a good place for a little dog to play, safely out of the way of Miss Snickers, the true owner of this house?

Now, however, the absence of a basement has proved a great boon. Yes, my house is small, but it's completely dry. Yes, there are a lot of people and creatures living in it right now, but we have been baking pear cobbler and ginger snaps; this afternoon we'll bake a cake for Christopher's 25th birthday.

Second, I have a new roof. The only reason I have a new roof is because the overbearing, tyrannical HOA made me get one, as part of making me do some $22,000 worth of work on my house last winter. How mightily I protested! Well, that's not quite true. I didn't actually protest at all to THEM, I hardly ever address my problems in such a constructive way. Instead, I complained mightily to YOU and other friends. I told myself, yes, the old roof did leak a bit in heavy rains, but it wasn't really all that bad; I could have coaxed it along for another year or two . . .

Not! There is no way that old roof would have stood up to this onslaught of rain. So it turns out that the overbearing, tyrannical HOA inspectors were angels in disguise. I have them to thank for the fact that no water dripped on my head over the past few days.

One of my Facebook friends recently posted: "Right now I'm looking for some blessings that AREN'T in disguise." I sympathize. But right now, blessings that came in disguise have turned out to be most welcome.