The thunder rolls by as the lightning crackles down the street. I'm buried amongst the blankets in my bed with the black-out shades drawn. It's about 5 pm but looks like midnight. I twitch slightly at the sound of the lightning, wondering how close it was but quickly soothed back to unconsciousness by the patter of pouring rain on my roof and window.
My husband comes into the room, flicking on every light imaginable and carrying Frost, a 20lb cat who still firmly believes he's a 5 month old kitten.
"Babe, it's big thunderboomers outside and the cat's are scared." he announces, concern and excitement filling his voice.
"So bring them in and turn off the light." I reply, groggy and a bit irritated. I don't wake up well.
He plops Frost onto the king-sized bed. Saphyra, Frost's sister, jumps up and lays on top of him as he curls as close as he can to my bent knees.
My husband then opens Satan's room and brings her and the kitten into the room. Satan proceeds to growl at everyone while snuggling as close as she can get to my head. This is not a good spot for the cat who hates cats. She has a tendency to attack and I don't like claw marks on my face.
The kitten, Orion, decides that he's scared yet happy to be able to be cuddling with "mommy" and proceeds to kneed, purr and suckle the blankets tucked tightly under my chin. Satan alternates between growling at the kitten, whacking him, and giving him kisses. I swear that cat is clinically insane.
I can still hear the rain pouring down in sheets on the house. It's the most soothing sound behind the cat's purrs to me. I love the rain and don't hear nearly enough of it, living in the desert.
Husband brings in Gunther, Frost and Saphyra's brother, who immediately hisses and bounds off the bed to hide in some obscure corner. He's not big on cuddling. Onyx meanders into the room making his guttural mrow noises in the back of his throat. I call him over just as my husband starts to talk again.
"Babe, the entire bottom of your car is flooded." He says with excitement. We don't see a whole lot of water.
"Really?" I reply with a hint of interest. I've never seen the street that covered in water, even when I lived in Florida. I start stirring and gently moving cats off of me so I can go see this novelty and take some pictures. I know this won't be something I see very often, if ever again. I'm just barely peeling myself out from underneath the pile of four cats when he comes back into the room to tell me with an excited, awed and annoyed voice that the fence has also blown down.
I put on my glasses, grab my camera phone and look out the window of my office to my car. There's about 2-4 inches of wheel covered in water and that's it. Talk about your disappointments. I head to the backyard thinking, "gee, if he exaggerated about the car, certainly the fence is still okay."
I open the back door.
"Holy crap!" I exclaim. I'm looking directly into my neighbor's back yard from my patio. Our side fence is completely horizontal. All I can think of is, "damnit, now their rat-dogs are going to poop in my backyard and this is going to be crazy expensive to fix. Maybe we should replace this fence with that white, plasticy-looking fence. Maybe then it wouldn't crack in half." I'm not entirely fond of small dogs and my neighbor has two that yip all day and night. This is also the second time in three years that this particular part of the fence has broken. Wooden fences don't do well here. It's too dry and the winds are crazy.
I take a few pictures of the damaged fence, as well as the damaged gate in the front yard that I've been asking him to replace for three years now. It looks as if he has no choice but to fix it, thanks to the rain. I take a picture of my flower garden that's completely drowning in water and wonder if he wasn't right; maybe my car had flooded and I missed it.
The cats follow me around the house, waiting by the doors as I leave and return. I sit in the middle of the floor and they crowd around me, all attempting to sit in my lap without touching each other. I giggle at their antics, cooing and petting each one of them so they know they're safe and loved.
Now that I've been awakened, my darling husband announces that he's going to take a nap.
I try to lay back with him and Orion starts suckling and mewing. Saphyra hisses and growls and Satan thinks I'm her personal chew toy. I sigh in resignation, knowing that while my husband is already snoring, I'm up for the day.
As I write this, the sun attempts to peek from behind the clouds. The water drains, leaving behind a moist earth and street. In another hour it won't even look like it had rained all day long.
The cats are calming down, each curling into their favorite spots as Bry's gentle snores can be heard over the clicking of my keyboard. I sigh in resignation, hoping to be called off tonight, but knowing that this is just the start of another long night. Perhaps tomorrow I'll sleep more than 6 hours.
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