inside her mind...

I was driving down to Portsmouth to pick up Mol from her 2nd go at netball-after-school-club (she seems to have embraced Team Sport with gusto) (god I hate netball, but mustn't prohibit her total fulfillment of potential by imposing my dislikes upon her... Which reminds me of a loud argument I once had with Husband about how I'd inadvertently told Mol that maths was my weakest subject at school and OH how I'd hated it and sweated and fumbled my way through GCSE ("Is that what you do at university Mum...?" - endless conversations at the moment about what order education comes in, with which exams) and then bloody well failed after all that shit and how I was leaping for joy when I finally got the frickin C grade and could shove my calculater up the teachers self satisfied number-filled-arsehole... And Husband stopped me in my tracks "You WHAT? Oh you should NEVER let them know how much you dislike a subject at school. No no NO! My god woman. It'll ONLY lead to her not liking maths too. You IDIOT! WHAT FUCKING MORON tells their child that they failed at maths? DURRRRRH. (Tongue inserted in bottom-lip to pull stupid-monkey-face.) So now I'm very cautious about what I tell my children. Obviously they both still love numbers because so far it only involves adding up to 100 or telling the teacher that yes, it is a triangle. I enjoy that sort of maths too.)...

Anyway. I got distracted.

So in the car with me was Liz. She sits behind me in her little booster seat and I can just see the top of her eyes, her forhead and her hair... It ruffles in the wind as she sticks her hand out the window.

We chat about who kissed who in the playground and whether Roxy is really (she's one of the dinner ladies) a natural blond or not (Liz suspects not). And once all the big chat from the day is over we fall into companionable silence.

Liz trails her fingers out the window and watches the passing countryside, which looks particularly good today as it's sunny and autumnal. The colours are clear and the air smells just right.

In our silence my thoughts lead back to work, and income and my lack of funding and what happens if Husband should leave me for someone who's actually nice and seems to outwardly show signs of affection, how could I ever find a job that actually pays me money that could feed and house myself and two children, let alone pay for an N-reg car that costs £50 a week to run... I was feeling kind of gloomy as the enormity of my situation came crashing in through the flimsy Peugots' 25 year old windows. Could I survive on my own? Would social services be obliged to take my children away from me and would I have to go and live in a tent on Dartmoor dodging the credit bayliffs?

As the terror of my dependency clouded my head I suddenly came back to reality as I heard Liz say my name (well, she said Mum, because she doesn't call me by my real name, I mean, sometimes I ask her to call me Mrs, or Madam, or to at least curtsey before making eye-contact, but on the whole it's just Mum). She had to say it a few times for me to register that I was in the car, driving, and not in a tent on Dartmoor handwashing my 2nd pair of socks in a stream...

"Mum" says Liz. "MUM".
"Oh, yes! Hello you!"
"MUM! guess what? I think I've got it!"
"What's that Liz?"
"I've finally worked out how to train a dog to skip with a real skipping rope."

Well. Nothing more than dogs skipping to bring me crashing back to real life, eh?

Deep Discussions with a 7 year old

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Mum, you know One Direction?"
"Yes"
"Did you know they are probably going to split up?"
"Really? How do you know?"
"Well. You know Alice?"
'Yes"
"Well. You know her bigger sister Loopy?"
"Yes"
"Well. She told us."
"Must be true then."
"Oh, yes it is. She's nearly 14 you know."

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Mum. My jodpurs are too small."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. They keep falling down."

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Do you prefer One Direction, Two Direction, or Three Direction?"
"?"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Who said Cyclists can't fly?"
"?"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Your skin is really white on your legs."
"Really? I was thinking they were quite brown... They're browner than your tummy skin..."
"Really? Oh, yes. But not nearly as white as my BUM"

"Mum?"
"Yes"
"Do you know, I think it'd be really difficult to eat myself?"
"Really?"
"Yes, I tried. But I think it'd be most hard to eat your head. You'd have to cut it off and then leave your mouth so that it could eat the head bit."
"But if you cut off your head you'll be dead and your mouth won't work."
"Ah, I hadn't thought of that."

"Liz?"
"Yes"
"I've got a question for you. Which came first. The chicken or the egg?"
"Oh, that's EASY. The chicken. Oh. Wait. No. The EGG! So easy."
"But who laid the egg?"
"The chicken. Oh wait. No! The egg! HA! Got ya!"

I went round to my parents house the other day to be met by not one but two sausage dogs. One was my mums dog, a girl, or tee-hee, a bitch; the other, a man dog, called Dud the Stud (or Dudley in polite company).
Why Mum, are there two dogs here?
Well, darling! Dudley is here to make babies with Kali! Can you imagine how sweet? Little baby sausage dogs!
Yes indeed, I can well imagine the sweetness, their little wet noses and baggy skin, wobbly tails,  and smelling of puppiness.
Mol and Liz were very excited at the thought and Liz automatically started to egg the two dogs on to get on and make the babies. Bear in mind Liz is 6 and doesn't know much about biology.
Mol, as a cool 10 year old hung back and assessed the situation.
"COME ON DUDLEY! MAKE THE PUPPIES!" yells Liz.
Dudley responds by humping the towel that is on the floor (it's raining outside so there is wet-dog-gear all over the kitchen). Dudley wags his tail and smiles as he looks at his new lady friend with lust, humping away on something that definitely will not produce puppies.
 Dudley's man-parts are very excited too and my daughters eyes are transfixed by the goings on in his nether-regions. Pink and glistening nether-regions. Mol again is quiet, while her sister graphically describes what she is seeing and then decides that she has to draw a picture immediately.
Almost like a court-room artist, she sits down at the table, grabs a notepad and biro, and starts to draw what very much looks like a human penis, with a large circumsized tip.
My mum and I giggle immaturely and wonder where Beth has got this image from, as it's not matching Dudley, who's penis is very dog like and certainly not circumsized. Beth then draws the rest of Dudley around the huge penis that she has drawn and we all laugh outright at the ridiculous image she has conjured up. She won't be exhibiting at the RA in any near or far future.
Meanwhile POOR Dudley.
It emerges that he is in fact a virgin.
"What's a virgin Granny?"
"Well, its when the person / dog hasn't, um, well, had sex before. So Dudley I guess he doesn't really actually know what he's supposed to be doing with his willy".
"Come on Dudley, get your man-willy near Kali!" shouts Liz, very close to the poor confused dog, who is now humping thin air.
"It's actually a dog-willy" snaps Mol who feels the need to chip in at this point - obviously to correct her IDIOTIC moronic sister.
"OH, he's pee'd Granny" observes Mol.
"Uh, actually, that's not pee Darling" informs Granny.
"Its, um, man-juice, um, sperm, its what has to get INSIDE Kali to actually make the babies..." I say, feeling awkward like an adolescent who's just caught her parents having sex.
"?" say my children.
"!" I say.
Kali has pushed her nether regions into a corner and Dudley has got himself into a new position... He's attempting to mount Kali's nose, at which point Mum pulls him away lest his precious and expensively hired out dog-parts see the end of their days during an act of loving (in his eyes) oral sex.

"Granny I don't think it's going to work is it?" says Liz.
Dudley has jumped up on to Mums lap and is about to hump her thigh.
"NO!" says Mum as the dog is returned promptly to the floor.
Mum opens the door and shoves the dogs out into the garden, where Dudley walks like he has a slinky stuck down his back bone, up and down up and down goes his back, such is his desire to hump everything in sight except for the dog he's meant to be servicing.

We left as Dudley was approaching a chicken with his parts all out and ready to go... Probably best to leave them to it. What's a cross between a dog and a chicken? Dicken? Chog?
Anyway - there won't be any sausage-dog puppies in the Meon for a while yet.
But what a splendid biology lesson we all had.

Rewind a few weeks, back to the dizzy heat of Easter Day...
Remember? Waking up to that warm feeling of sunshine and daffodils squeezing their heads up through the hard spring ground... Buds on the trees, bees in the breeze, the countryside on the de-freeze...

The excitement of tasting chocolate again for the first time since Shrove Tuesday was high up my list of Sunday's chores, as well as an epic bike ride over to The Bat And Ball (home of cricket! where all good cricket-widows, sorry I mean wives, should find themselves on Easter Sunday) and a top Easter Egg hunt as the sun set over the woods in the late afternoon.

But before all that could kick off we needed a little visit to the church, to think about the story behind Easter, to think about the real reason we have Easter eggs and the real reason for the Easter Rabbit. Surely this all comes from the christian faith?
(queue coughy-clearing-of-the-throat noise from Mr Cadburys...)

Over Easter we had some friends staying with us. North London friends with black hair, ipads and 2 pairs of wellies between the 4. Not being your usual church-goers, they being of the Jewish(ish) community, Mr C and his eldest daughter M thought it'd be educational to come sit at the back of the church with us for the Easter service.

With the church heaving with over-sugared children and mothers worrying about how long to cook their lamb, the vicar and organist set off at a good pace to get through the service before there was a collective melting in the congregation.

Meanwhile, at the back of the church on the last pew, sat me, Husband, Liz, Mol, Mol's friend and Mols friends' Dad Mr C. Mr C, who'd never been in a church before now.
Husband sits in the pew and rests his head in his hand for a moment of contemplation.
"What's he doing?" a fierce whisper in my left ear and I'm face to face with Mr C, who's looking anxiously at Husband.
"Why's he doing that?" Eyeball to eyeball.
"Um, praying? Maybe? Often people come to church and pray?"
"Hm" and a curious sideways nod of the curly head.
Out comes the iphone.
"?" I look at Mr C.
I see the vicar through the iphone view finder. I see the backs of the congregation through the iphone view finder.
We sing some hymns.
"Not the same sort of tunes at the synagogue."
We read from the service sheet. A lady with a reedy voice reads from the bible.
The vicar makes his Address and waffles about something for 5 minutes.
Then he (the vicar) walks to the rear of the church, metres from where we are sitting. He is standing by the font where I was christened, and where Liz & Mol were christened. Its nearly 900 years old.
"What's he doing?" another fierce whisper this time in my right ear (we've turned around facing the back of the church).
"Not sure."
"Do you think he can tell I'm Jewish?"
"I think you'll be OK."
"I feel really exposed. We're right at the front now."
"I know. Stop talking. You're drawing attention to your Jewfro and your very unHampshire North Face puffer jacket."
"Maybe I should stop taking photos?"
"Shut up."
The vicar starts talking from the service sheet again and it seems that we are re-newing our baptism vows (something to do with rebirth maybe?).
Suddenly out of nowhere, the vicar gets his hand in the Holy Water,
"Why is there water in that thing?" (pointing to the font)
"It's the Holy Water to baptise babies in."
"What's he doing?"
"Not sure."
And before another questions spurts from Mr C's mouth, the vicar is splashing water out to the congregation - renouncing the devil loudly he flings water out towards us.
The water splashes the North Face jacket.
It takes every ounce of bodily control to not let out a loud blast of laughter as Mr C hops back - service sheet flying, water dabbing his puffer...
"Ahhhhh! What's it going to do? What does Holy Water do? Is it going to burn my coat?" (It's like that moment in the opening titles of Sex in the City, when SJP gets splashed crossing the road...)
The vicar returns to the front and we sing hymn number 428.
Mr C looks wild eyed.
"Oh dear, you are really in a religious compromise now" I say... "What will the gods think of you now - a little bit of this, a little bit of that... This is the kind of stuff WARS are made of Mr C."
Mr C soon left the church, iphone in the damp pocket.
He hasn't been back to the church since. Hopefully he'll come again - maybe at Christmas and we can all have a play with the animals in the crib!

And the chocolate tasted DIVINE.

Job Hunting.

It is a somewhat deflated mothersruin contacting the ether today. Having just fallen at my 5th job interview I am feeling somewhat underwhelmed by myself... and am using this space to explore what is going on for me right now.
So.
I've watched interview techniques on linkedin.
I've researched the importance of body language - say the name of the interviewers when they introduce themselves, plenty of eye contact, open shoulders, sit upright, lean forward but don't slouch...
I've swatted up on the company I'm interested in working for.
I adapt my CV.
I write detailed covering letters, laying down examples of why I fit the spec.
I appeal to the interviewers that I am the one. I implore myself to be articulate and look confident.
I ignore my blushes and sweaty palms.
Lucky charms? Not for me. 
I convince myself that I AM the one, and fall into pace with the interviewers, feeling confidence build as the clock ticks by.
Yet, so far, 5 interviews later, I clearly am not the one.

I've been job hunting since September. The day Mol & Liz went back to school I sat down at my desk and pulled my thinking cap on.
What can I do?
What am I qualified to do?
Where do my interests lay?
What are my limitations?
How far away from home can I throw my net?
And so I begun to hunt.

Hunting is fun. I find myself being led down many internet trails, honing in on a target, clicking from one company to the next, one recruitment agency to the next, one council website to another, contemplating roles and companies and hours and pay and trying to imagine myself in that role, doing the job, looking the part, playing the part, becoming the part. Is this a jeans or a suit role? Lipstick or no make up? Mac or PC?

Stabbing away at the keyboard as though making a kill, I click "APPLY" and download another 12 page application form... Sighing at the thought of it, but thinking of the possible exciting end result, I galvanize myself into action and put my head into gear.

As the Personal Statement takes shape I begin to convince myself that I really do deserve the job. Surely, how can they resist me? Look at my experience! Look at my strengths! How honest I am!
I know where my downfalls lay, I'm happy to admit them and crawl out of my comfort zone.
God! Training to be a counsellor drags you kicking and screaming out of the comfort zone once a week (at least) for 2 or 3 years... I'm OK with the comfort zone challenge.
Of course I can keep myself organised and prioritise my workload - I'm a mother for goodness sake! Have you ever tried being a mother? I dare you to look down your nose on the trials of organising a family.

So, having checked for typos, grammatical hiccups, repetition, incorrect national insurance number, no I'm not a lesbian, yes I'm white British, no I'm not an illegal immigrant, no I haven't committed a crime recently (other than blasphemy and going 35 in a 30zone) the "SEND" button is clicked with a flourish of the hand and I breath again in the knowledge that my application is as fat and juicy as a worm to a blackbird.

And honestly, I'm not surprised to receive an invitation to interview. It is obvious. I fit.
Is that arrogant? But why would I apply for a job unless I felt I could do it and had the qualifications? It would be a pointless waste of time.
But then something happens.
What is it?
And here is where I am under a spaghetti of confusion: why can't I nail it in the interview?
What more do they want?
They see me on paper. They see me in the flesh. They hear me twittering away about my experiences "I'm excellent under pressure... If I'm confused by something I refer to a colleague before making any decisions... I've never missed a deadline... I'm used to working with people at all levels within a company..." We smile at each other, and shuffle paper and legs cross and un-cross, water is offered, time slips by. We shake hands and tell each other it was a pleasure, and thank you so much for your time.

24hours later I receive an email telling me that it was (still) a pleasure to meet me, and they enjoyed my interview... But that unfortunately they are not offering me the job.

So then I'm left feeling bereft. WHAT? But we were smiling and having cerebral brain-stretching chats only 2 days ago... what happened?

Do I have a false image of myself?
Or, is it that I am actually for real life a dum-ass-brain-dead-wine-soaked-woman who has been out of the official work-force just a couple of years too many?

Having told my most recent interviewers that I take knock-backs with magnitude, and that I am quite a dogged sort of worker, today, I feel flattened and very (what's the opposite to dogged - catted?) like - well, what good was my University Degree, and my Post-Graduate-Diploma, and my 12 years of marketing work?

I am so tired today. "Get back on to a new quest" says my dad sensitively! "Suck in the grief and go out there again" he carries on, clearly forgetting that I've just spent 2 years training as a counsellor and sucking in grief is not a healthy option.
So today I am grieving for the 5th time in 3 months.
And Monday, I shall put my thinking cap on again, and try, try, try again.
Amen.

(Oh, happy mothers day to all you gals out there!)

My little gal is ten...
And I feel as wrinkled as a hen...
And I I remember when
She was as tiny as a grain of rice and as delicate as a little wren.

Anyway. Here's the story of Mols birthday party on Tuesday. 

...so...
We rock up to the cafe (up in London, for the crack) where I'd booked tea for Mols birthday, and there's a frickin' film crew in our space taking up our places... Lights and cameras and cables and all that rubbish.
None too pleased, thinking I have 6 children to feed and water, and a couple of old-parentals too, I'm stormy faced with the barman, and a bit like 'but I BOOKED this...?'...

The Producer appears, a sweet smily lady in flat shoes...
'I'm soooo sorry, we should be finished in 15mins, please have a drink on us, I've got a tab running...We know it's your daughters 10th birthday, I feel so bad... but you know the problem is Tom was running late and...'
I'm like ok - yadda yadda enough of the blurb, cheers, but ok, so order copious hot chocolates & lemonades & a bottle of wine, and some beer and see if I can book a holiday whilst they're not looking, etc.

Then I peer around the corner to see the lights shining on this bearded grey haired man... Hmmmm. I recognise him...

'Yeah, sorry, Tom was held up in Arsenal traffic... ' says obliging producer paying for our drinks (and summer holiday)...

Small lightbulb clicks in my head.
Ah, Tom. Grey hair. Bearded. The look of a legend about him...
As in...
Jones.

(I sneak a glance at the Grandmother to check she's not about to have a hot flush and throw underwear about the bar, but she's taken underwhelmed position...)

And then...
So the woman who is interviewing him (Cerys Matthews, Cattationia, with a fine head of hair) pulls out a small guitar from under the table and starts to strum a few chords.

And the producer comes up to me and pol and says...
"Oh, listen I think he's going to sing..."

So we stand in the door way and swizzle our ears Tom-wards. It's kind of fun being so close, I guess.

Tom the bearded wonder looks up and asks Mol 'what's your name?' Mol squirms, "Mol mumble mumble",
'What?'
"Mol, mumble squirm".

And, oh, this is a familiar tune I think...
Hmmm v familiar...

And, oh, this is BRILLIANT!! TOM JONES strikes up a jolly rendition of Happy Birthday to Mol, guitar Cerys Matthews!

Well. That's quite good. Even I couldn't pretend to be cool about it.

London has its plus sides sometimes.

Even though Mol had no idea who he was.

Is it time for the sex chat with Mol yet?
She's only nine. Well, nine, about to be 10 in just under one months time.

I'm trying very hard to put myself back (the brief 15 years) to when I was 10 (have you done your maths yet?) and remember whether or not I had knowledge of sex and the like.

When I was 10 we didn't have things like advertising and we didn't have pre-teen-bra's and we didn't have DS's or instant SMS or morning TV (well, we did have morning TV but my parents fooled us into believing that there wasn't morning TV - which meant that we missed out on legendary programmes such as Saturday Swop Shop and trendy music shows... Instead we were out in the garden playing "Show Jumping" with the dog) and boys and girls played stuck in the mud (if they played together at all) and sometimes, if we were feeling really crazy, kiss chase may have been experimented with tentatively - all very chaste.

When I was 10 I didn't see TV shows with pretty girls sporting long black eyelashes and pink lips and finely quoiffed hair. The girls we saw back in the day barely wore make up and if their clothes came from Top Shop it wasn't a fashion statement it was out of necessity. Top Shop now is a hive of sexy little t-shirts and H&M is, god, well, it's plain scary. I am thankful that I don't have a local H&M and thankful that Mol therefore doesn't see what hangs in their shops for the 10 year olds. I know she'd 'av'em'all if she could.

Having watched a couple of reality TV shows with Mol (Strictly Come Dancing and 'So you think you can dance' and 'Lets Dance'...) she has seen how big people can promote themselves through their bodies, and increasingly she likes to replicate what she sees, (so far mainly at home). Recently the pelvic thrust and hip-gyration and the multiple-lash-bat have become rather popular moves in our kitchen, whilst dancing to The Killers or Kings of Leon or The Beatles... (Which in turn gets Liz out on the dance floor looking like she's swallowed a large tab of acid, jerking her little marshmallow legs around with her eyes rolling - that's funny, really funny to watch. But somehow it's OK for a 6 year old to do this because she really is only copying what she sees and has no idea of what it is saying.)

Mol gyrates herself around the kitchen batting her lashes and asking for my old blusher and mascara, and, 'mum, do you really need this eye shadow?'. Occasionally a leg whips up past her ear when the beat gets just one step too exciting.

The reason I ask about the sex thing, is that I know it's coming and I wonder if I should just pre-empt it? I remember an excrutiating conversation between my parents and me when I was somewhere between the age of 8-11. I was sitting at the piano bored out of my brain ("I hate this its SO unfair ugh it's so cold in this room oh I can't do this stupid piece my teacher is going to kill me why can't I go riding?") when BOTH of my parents suddenly appeared in the room and sat on the sofa, quietly crossing their legs and looking pointedly at me.

Then my mum said "Darling." I turned to them, wondering what I'd done wrong.

I stared at them.
They stared at me.
This is awkward.
"Darling." She continued. "Do you know about the... about the... you know... the..."
I stare some more.
"...the... birds and the bees?"

WHAT?

Well, dear god, thankfully, at this point in my life I must have had some sort of sex-ed at school (like, formal) because I remember, apart from nearly melting from embarrassment, saying, mumbling, coughing, "er, yes, yes yes... school... class... teacher..." turned around and started banging on the piano.

Conversation over. Sex chat closed. Not mentioned again until I was pregnant with Mol.

Mol asked me yesterday what celibacy means. We were watching Mrs Doubtfire. There is a rather understated chat about sex - which I was hoping went above her head, however, just as the scene drew to a close... Celibacy.

I ask you.
Extend the innocence, or get down with it and the quicker the better, no pain no gain?
Answers on postcards. I thank you.

Mud.
It's everywhere.
Some wisecrack once sung a song "mud mud glorious mud...".
Honestly. There really is nothing glorious about mud.
I mean, yeah. It's fun sometimes to splash around in a muddy puddle a-la-Peppa-Pig and have a jolly frolic. Bear in mind that Peppa Pig is a pig. Actually Peppa Pig is a cartoon so doesn't have any nerve endings or senses so doesn't actually know that she is in a puddle. It is the animators who tell her she is in a muddy puddle. And then make her react appropriately... or... do they?
It maybe easier avoid this kind of philosphical positing (does a cartoon pig have feelings? If you're not looking, does Peppa Pig still exist? Will Peppa Pig and her obese Dad with the fat voice be made into Walls Bangers?...Think how many people would be fed as a result. Could solve many problems, as long as 50% doesn't get thrown away by dodgy best-before-dates... that would be wasteful) as it tends to do your head no good. Well, not mine anyway.

But there is a lot of mud around here at the moment.

We moved to the green fields and rolling hills of Hampshire in April 2012. I can count on 2 hands the number of sunny days we have had since then. So it's not too surprising that there is a lot of mud around. What with tractors racing through the village; cows tip-toeing on the hill; walkers tramping the National Park paths in their special walking clothes (oh god, don't get me started on walkers clothes, and their little walking sticks that are retractable...); crazy scramblers ripping up the tracks; dogs rolling in the brown icky mess; wellingtons up to the brim in the stuff; rivers are voluptuous and, yes, brown - there are no clean puddles to wash the wellies, it oozes it's way under your front door into your house, and before you know it your stair carpets are covered, like the antithesis of nutella:- mud: it's the housewifes' worst nightmare.
Not even Flash Superior can solve this mud problem.

I walked up a hill the other day. And at the top it was flooded. How does that happen? Why had the water not run down the hill like other normal water? What was special about this water? I surveyed the scene with an inquisitive, scientific eye, an eyebrow raised, a welly stuck in a deep squelching brown mess. I thought I was about to have an Albert Einsten moment and was close to taking the Nobel Peace Price for Brilliance.
And then I realised - like my welly, even the water was stuck in the mud! Wow! Epiphany! I'll take the money thanks! Don't worry about a trophy!

Mud isn't very glorious.
It's very big and it's not clever. It's a bit like the irritating fat-boy at school that no one really likes, unless he is waving a chocolate bar around at playtime.
Even playing games like pretending it's the biggest doggy doo in the world plopped on our county, or the worlds largest country-pancake, or Willy Wonka's factory having a technical problems, or imagining if it somehow flooded Waitrose... - it doesn't really help.
In fact it is depressing because all these giant flooding poo references are so close to the truth.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

The wellington boot industry must LOVE this weather.
I wish I'd had the foresight to buy shares in Dunlop and those little kiosks in Undergrounds that sell umbrella's on rainy days and suncream on sunny days. Man, I'd be rolling in it (not the poo, more likely in the sea, in Barbados...).
 
Meanwhile, as the wellington boot manufacturers laugh out loud (LOL!) - recession? What recession?! and sales in rubber protection (foot, stop being dirty...) rocket, us country folk slop around, looking at the sky, looking at the floor, looking at each others mud-splattered rubber protection and weep another tear (into a bucket, to avoid further ground saturation) as the brown waters rise and the mud waves trickle closer to our homes.

Anyone know any good sun-dances?