Act of God, Part I

Winter here in the Bay of Plenty means no snow, but it does mean rain. A LOT of rain. More rain than I have ever experienced, anywhere, including the flooding monsoon rains of Thailand which could soak you through in seconds or the day-after-day grey drizzle of Strasbourg, France.

The upside is that our entire water supply comes from rain, so rain = good. But as the saying goes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Rain is romantic as it beats on the roof through the night. But when it's still beating down when you wake up...throughout the whole day...into the next night...it's a bit much. And if it goes on for days...flooding begins.

The only road from our place in the back country to the nearest town is a 2-lane coastal highway. Coastal highways are beautiful, but hardly practical. They're more for tourists to enjoy stunning glimpses of the ocean through the trees or to pull over and pose at the occasional photographic turn-off. And as gorgeous as this place is, it doesn't get a lot of tourists, except for some campers during the summer months (Christmas time). For the rest of us, it means an endless, windy road that takes twice as long to get to town than a road that aims for a more direct route.

"We told them," said the locals, in regards to when the government first came to build the road years ago. "We told them building here on the coast was a mistake....every time there's a big rain these hills avalanche. The road will be non-stop work."

They weren't just whistling dixie. Road workers have no fear of job loss as they are constantly on the road clearing piles of debris and shoring up the road. And just recently a new development. About 1/2 mile down the road from us, on the way into town, the road is, literally, falling into the sea. Well, okay, to be totally precise, the river. We live up on a hill that overlooks where a river meets the ocean. And as it continues to rain, the river gets higher and wider and has begun to take chunks of the highway with it on its rampant path.

This is very scary for me, for as isolated as I tend to feel up here in my small house in paradise, a trip into town, even the crappy little town that you hit first, is VERY much needed to prevent myself from going into a Jack-from-The-Shining suicidal state. Especially now that I'm not working so much.

The road was wheedled down to one lane, bordered by some cones and barriers precariously perched on its edge, just a foot or two above the muddy, rushing river.

Then there was a small lull in the rain.

The road crew hopped to it and spent over a week in large vehicles with various impressive implements moving dirt and rock, making piles. It appeared they were trying to re-route the river. It looked confusing, endless, and well...fruitless.

"What about when it rains again?"

Sure enough, a few days later the rains came, with just as much gusto as ever. Whatever intricate work they had done on the river bed area was now completely underwater as the swollen river rushed along. Oh well.

And it kept raining.

At the end of this past week, Beau said, "I really want to go into town, I haven't been for awhile." I was not as keen since I had already been that week to take the car in for repairs and since becoming pregnant, road trips can often = nauseated sick trips. But I took one look into our pantry and fridge to agree. We were running out of food and already getting cranky at dinnertime each night as we whined to each other.

"What do you want for dinner?"
*long pause*
"Well?"
- "I don't know...*sigh* What do you want?"
*perusing the pantry* "There's no food...pasta?"
- "No, not again."
"We've got potatoes..."
- "Ugh."

Then we just kind of walk away for an hour until we get even more hungry and more cranky and come back to the kitchen and start all over again until one of us gives in to the other's suggestion.

It didn't use to be THIS hard until I Thai-ed us out. We both love Thai food and I love to cook it, and since I can kind of go on auto pilot when making it, I usually prefer to. But I think we're getting a bit sick of it...especially stir fry which is my specialty, but can get hard to choke down EVERY WEEK.

In addition, since I'm not working so much, we are basically living on Beau's income which means being more frugal with food, which can be tough with a VERY particular, picky pregnant woman who lives off of can of mandarin oranges, jars of artichoke hearts, and piles and piles of fruit, often imported kind like grapes and cherries.

At Beau's work, where I was subbing for the day, they warned us. "Huge floods are coming. The rain's gonna start, and it won't stop the whole weekend."

"Huh?"

"Don't you listen to the radio at home?"

"Erm, no" (never)

We heard different stories from the rain starting that night (Friday) at 9pm all the way to 3pm the next day. The canteen lady plopped the newspaper down in front of me at lunch, and stabbed at finger at an article on the front page.

"Expected floods all throughout the Bay of Plenty this weekend. Civil Defence called out and ready."

Hrm. I don't know why a part of me can't take stuff like this seriously. Like the last two "tsunamis" or occasional earthquakes that make you giggle more than tremble. I'm not an idiot, I guess I just have never lived anywhere where there was any kind of real Act of God threat. Still.

"Let's go Friday after work," I said to Beau. "We can beat the rain."

He grimaced. "Then we have to drive home in the dark...and it may be raining. I hate that, and I'll be tired."

"But it said the rain might not start til 9pm. We'll be home by then."

"It's still the dark. I'd rather drive in daylight with rain than at night."

Hrmph.

So, we wait til tomorrow, Saturday, and take our chances with the rain.