When It Rains, It Pours... and then Floods.

I had a wonderful trip to Japan this last week, where I visited my husband Andrew who is temporarily stationed at the Yokosuka Navy base. He's out there for a month, which isn't a long time, considering how long most deployments go. I arrived right in the middle of his stint, and arrived home yesterday already missing him.

How much I miss him is increasing exponentially with every obstacle I encounter.

While I was away, Minnesota had a couple nights of thunderstorms with rain. It filled up our downstairs room's egress and overflowed into the room through the window. The carpet was soaked. The furniture looks okay though, and this could have been much worse. Especially since we use the room as our computer room. I can imagine what sort of electrical nightmare that could have been. But thanks to friends and family - and a panic return call from my over-seas sailor - I have a good grasp on the situation, and am not going to let it get me down.

Then there are the wasps. I found three inside the house when I got home. Two of the little devils were by the deck screen door, dead, thankfully. I also found one downstairs next to the water heater. Andrew had suggested weeks ago that the wasp I had found near the garage door had come in through a vent, and after finding two upstairs, I was curious to look around and see if any more came in. This one was still alive, albeit barely. So I find myself still wondering - where are they coming from? This brings my inside-the-house wasp total to five this year. Our sliding door to the deck must be crap. Or the wasps are magical and can go through glass. That's all I need...magic wasps.

Andrew might know how to deal with these wasps better than I, but he's not around to be the man, so I have to be tough. I keep telling myself this. Be strong. Be the man. Kill the bugs that would harm you and your guinea pig. Boy, I miss him.

A couple of my plants started to grow while I was gone, though two were completely submerged in water. At least with this flooding problem, I can just dump out the excess and perhaps try to drill a hole into the plant boxes to prevent this from happening again. Sounds easy enough, right? No... I now I have wet dirt on my deck. And apparently you need a specific bit for the drill to make a hole, and not just any old screw head.

Have I mentioned that I miss my husband?

Somewhere in my youth, I really missed an important part of my education: man tasks. What to do when things go wrong. Growing up without a dad around the house (and then a mechanically challenged grandfather), you'd think that I would have had to learn this stuff for myself. And I did learn quite a few things: using a lawn-mower, killing spiders, putting furniture together. You know, maybe I should omit that spider part. I still have Andrew do that.

All too often I defer to Andrew in these situations that I can solve if I put my mind to it. I just need to focus. And it would probably help if I stop running, screaming, from the wasps.