Waiting for a Flood

I am praying for the rain to stop. It has been a disaster around here the past few days though like any disaster, it's relative. I had an appointment in town yesterday that I'd wanted to cancel because if there's one thing I'm afraid of in this world other than being served meatloaf at a dinner party, it's driving around in (what I deem) treacherous conditions in a car that's low to the ground as opposed to the non-existent Jeep Grand Cherokee that I will never own. I get into my VW, immediately strengthening a nebulous belief in a supreme being, and drive down the driveway into a flood of mud and brown rain water shooting down in torrents from, I think, highway 17. I made it easily to Scotts Valley, when I get a phone call that the appointment has been cancelled because they have no electricity. I drive to the store, grab a couple of items, get back into the VW and drive back up the hill toward work. I want to pick-up Bella and get home asap. 

When I got nearby work, Angie, a close neighbor and friend was standing in the middle of the road holding herself up with some sort of sticklikething or maybe a shovel without the shove part. She highly recommended I not drive back up the hill due to fallen debris, boulders, bricks, dog-poop etc. though I was really anxious to pick up Bella. Angie offered rain-boots but since I have huge feet, I had to politely refuse, plus with compression garments under my pants, well, it's just really icky to be so inconvenienced and wetted by wet weather. I asked Angie to drive me up the hill in her truck but she was too afraid. A couple of years ago she drove off the side of the mountain and still hasn't recovered mentally (which probably helps explain why she was standing in the middle of a deluge of rock, mud, water and doggie fecal matter with a pole in her hand.) Then Angie offered to walk up the hill in the flood and debris and pick up Bella. When she came walking back about 45 minutes later, she was carrying Bella in her arms because if she had let Bella walk, Bella would have floated away. But Bella really loves the water so she would have been happy.

The 2nd photo shows another neighbor who owns vicious poodles. He and his wife live in a trailer in the shade. He keeps an old broken-down Fiat parked in the rain under a wet blanket. He paid a fortune for his property at the height of the market and now he probably can't sell it for a buck. His trailer area smells like the county needs to come out and condemn the place. Strange material mixes with mud and rainwater comes primarily from his dogs because my Bella is a sweet little lamb who only poops inside of black recyclable bags while the two poodles poo in poo-dle piles. In the photo I blurred this guy's face because he's wearing crocs but one good thing about crocs is with the holes, they allow for the free-flow of flood waters and around here lately, that's an excellent idea.