Saturday, September 2, 2017

A Nine-Bucket Bail: Climate Change in Germany

While I was stuffing the eggplants this afternoon, my daughter, who had checked her cell phone and promised no rain, rushed downstairs, opened the patio door, and started hauling in the racks of laundry that had been drying so nicely a few minutes before. I hadn't noticed the downpour--I was distracted by the need to grate the cheese that was going into the stuffed eggplants and peppers--and the sun was shining brightly outside. But it was Noah's-floodlike out there. Hail started clattering down.
"Should we bring the guinea pigs in?"
"I dunno--the cage is covered. If it stops in five minutes . .  ." I stuffed another pepper and stuck it in the tray, ready to go into the oven.
The rain didn't stop. With a doorman-sized umbrella, I went outside to retrieve two slightly damp, indignant guinea pigs, who looked as if they were wondering what took me so long. Having taken refuge in one of their little houses, the piggies were dry until I had to chase them to get them into their carrier.
When we were in Italy a few weeks ago, staggering around the Villa Torlonia and the Colosseum in 101º-105º-degree heat, we got hit with a storm in Venice, fortunately after we'd already taken our gondola ride. The clouds unfolded, rains of Biblical proportions slammed down, we huddled in a doorway watching the shopkeeper next door poke a broom into the awning over his shop, letting gallons of water slosh out. 
On the way home, uprooted trees lay all over the road.
This afternoon the hail stopped, and I went down to our basement to check laundry. The storage room often floods, but this time the water was an inch up around the wall. 
Nine buckets full. Nine. 
Ten, actually. If you count the one I filled.

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