Sunshine After The Flood

We didn't get flooded but lots of streets around us did. Last night's rain was apocalyptic there for a few minutes and showed us that we really do need new gutters because the rain was sheeting down between the soffit and gutters. It was like curtains of water, pretty but only on someone else's house. I must be getting old, there's a picture of a child swimming in a street on the front page of the paper and all I thought was, how dangerous, where's her mother? Old lady thoughts, right?

We're skipping writer's tonight because 3 of the 5 can't make it. Maybe I'll get Durwood to do a couple of exercises with me, unless someone wants to come over and write. I miss it when it's too long between exercise nights. I just love feeding off the energy of a group of writers sitting together and putting words down on paper.

July 7--Seychelles, Africa. Marty sat on the bow of the boat, leaning back on the windshield, as they sped toward the little island. She saw a dark mark on the white sand and sat up straighter. It looked like a piece of driftwood shaped like a cross. X marks the spot, she thought with an internal giggle. The swarthy faces of the boat crew reminded her of Hollywood pirates and she had entertained herself all week spinning tales of buccaneers out here in the Indian Ocean. This desolate part of the world peppered with far-flung island and few people would be the perfect place for a band of pirates to lurk. Of course these days they'd be in speedboats not the beautiful but slow sailing ships of old. Ranel the deck hand came up onto the bow with binoculars in his hand. He stood with his feet braced and flexed his knees to stay upright as the boat bounced over the swells. She stood up to get a better look. She gasped when she realized that what she had thought was a driftwood cross was the spreadeagled form of a man burnt nearly black by the harsh tropical sun.

Aaand, it's clouding up again. Man, the skeeters are going to carry us away if it keeps being so hot and wet. I'm off to get ready for work. Have a day.
--Barbara