It is really dry here in Houston, Spooners. We are something like 17 inches behind our average rainfall for the year. Driving through the park today, I noticed that the duck pond is almost completely dry. The water that remains is like thick dirt soup. Poor ducks, trying to paddle around in that stuff. Like swimming in chocolate sauce, except not quite so tasty. We are beginning to be concerned about this lack of rainfall because we're afraid it might mean we will receive all 17" at the same time. We discuss it daily at Communications Central (a/k/a the smoke pit).

The longer I live on the Gulf Coast, the more I wonder why. Why I continue to stay in a place where hurricanes and floods and rising water seem to be perennial scourges. We rarely have that slow, gentle, nurturing kind of rain which gently caresses and cools. Noooo, not us. We have to be beaten into submission by the weather, its total fury unleashed upon us. Either we are baked by a merciless Sun until the ground cracks open, or we find ourselves submarining home. Sometimes a low pressure area and a high pressure area meet and stall right over us, dumping massive amounts of water on a saturated ground surface. There's nowhere for it go but up.

That's exactly what happened to create the Great Flood of '79. That one caught me totally by surprise. A group of agents were partying in Shoreacres, oblivious to the severity of the storm. We were celebrating some milestone, although for the life of me I don't recall exactly what at the moment. Anyway, our first clue that something was amiss was when we noticed water seeping in under the front door. Yikes! By that time it was midnight, and there we were, miles from home with water, water everywhere.

I was house-sitting and car-sitting for Too Tall, who was TDY (on temporary duty) in Midland, so I was driving her 1974 Mustang. The bar was closed and the water was rising; there was nothing for it but to get in the street and try to get home. I made my way down Shoreacres Boulevard and managed to get to Highway 146; once there, the only passable route was south down 146 to NASA Road One and then west (hopefully) through Clear Lake City. It looked like I'd have to make a great big circle - the direct route was completely impassable.

We crept along, the Mustang and I, slightly inebriated, water up to the headlights, deluged by rain and wind. For hours we slogged our way homeward. There were places where NASA One was only a lovely memory, particularly where it makes that big curve around the lake. When we arrived at that point, road and lake became one. Water completely covered the highway, the shoreline, and the bridge railings. There was no way to tell what was water and what was road. I just had to remember where the road lay.

To this day I am still amazed at how much water that little car could master. We didn't get stopped by high water until we tried to travel north on El Camino Real. The Mustang finally started to float when we reached the Firestone store, and it was only by the grace of the gods that the tires caught traction long enough for me to pull up the driveway to higher ground. It was there I would spend the night, the little car rocking with the force of the winds and the rain whipping down, horizontal at times, as I watched boats motoring up and down the street.

It was a cozy arrangement in many ways. I had plenty of cigarettes, an umbrella, a radio, and a shelter from the storm. Conversely, I also had an excruciating need to urinate. I mean it was critical. I surveyed the situation. The Firestone store was locked and dark, as was every other business in the strip center behind it. The homes along Reseda were also dark; folks were either sleeping through the storm or were stranded somewhere, like me. Half a block down and across El Camino, however, a Safeway store blazed with life, hosting marooned employees and customers. They would certainly have a restroom. Confident in my abilities and dedicated to my mission, I packed for the trip, stashing money, keys and ID in the pocket of my jeans. I slipped my purse under the seat and grabbed the umbrella.

The umbrella was sacrificed to the winds almost immediately. Whoosh! She turned inside out and the gale whipped her right out of my hand. The last I saw of my umbrella, she was careening across the parking lot, a tumbling pile of rubble. Undaunted, and considerably more determined now that I was thoroughly wet, I headed for the street. The waters were raging down El Camino but I could tell where the median lay and I was certain I could wade across with no problem.

Ha! Unbalanced and bowed by the driving rain and wind, I was immediately dumped from my feet and swept down the street by the current. My arms and legs flailed as the rushing water carried me spinning away. I couldn't even grab hold of anything to stop myself. It is only in retrospect that I can truly appreciate the exhilaration of that ride; at the time it was happening my only thought concerned how to STOP. Well, stop I finally did. The waters whirled me into the curb about a block down, where I managed to gain control and climb to solid ground. Completely soaked, I stumbled back to the car along the banks of the raging Rio del Camino Real, more in need of a bathroom than ever.

Why I didn't just go ahead and do it in my pants, I will never know. It would have saved a lot of concern on my part and been a simpler solution in the long run. But the thought never occurred to me. Especially once I decided to go swimming, what would have been easier than simply letting go as I whirled down the street? What, was I worried about getting my pants wet or something?

Back in the car, I dripped great puddles and ruminated. What to do? It was at that moment that my eye caught sight of an empty juice bottle on the floorboard. You know those little individual bottles you buy in the convenience stores? Well, I was a wealthy woman. There were two - count 'em, TWO - of those bottles at my disposal. All I had to do was come out of those wet jeans inside that teeny little car. I looked at the juice bottle. Right.

I am happy to report that my objective was successfully attained, which is a feat in itself, and it still amuses me that my being too lazy to remove the trash from the car saved a critical situation one stormy night. As in most of life's little crises, the solution was right there in the car with me all the time but I didn't recognize it until totally defeated by all perceived possibilities.

This is but one in a long line of exciting adventures I have had at the hands of Mother Nature. I am not afraid of the Devil Himself; my own personal safety is never of great import to me, and I am completely at ease in the company of outlaws, murderers and thieves. The one thing that still strikes fear in my heart, however, is the advent of rising water.