Where’s Robbo?

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Sorry for the recent dearth of posting.  Long story short is that we had yet another basement flood since my last one, finally driving the Eldest Gel to remove herself from said basement and move back into the upstairs bedroom we had been using as an office.  (I nearly herniated myself hauling things up and down the stairs.) I don’t care to reestablish the computer in the basement until we get this water biznay sorted out, so I am essentially off-line at the moment.   Indeed, I only have access right now because I needed to re-up my past-due car registration before the Ogpu got me.  I hauled the computer and printer back up to the gel’s room and am currently typing off the top of her dresser and will have to disassemble it again as soon as I log off.

Anyhoo, sooner or later I’ll be back to regular posts.  In the meantime, help yourselves to the decanter and the stilton is over there on the sideboard.

Toodle-pip!

Oh, HAIL, Yeah!

Collected Aftermath

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo loves to play a little game with Ma Nature: On stormy spring and summah afternoons, he has a look at the radar just before leaving the office and decides whether or not to risk trying to make it home with all the side panels off La Wrangler.  The go/no go decision is based on an average commute time of about 45 minutes or so and the track and speed of the various cells in the neighborhood.

If I win, I get satisfaction.  If I lose, I get rayther wet.

Today, with storms rolling in from the southwest, I timed it to near-perfection, as the rain started within about ten minutes after I got home.  (TRUE perfection is when I park in the garage and am able to scamper out to the mailbox and back just before the deluge.)  But this time I also got an added bonus: As I took my usual pre-dinner shower, I started to hear a series of loud THWACKS!  At first, I thought it was just one of the cats fooling with a toy, but I soon realized the sound was coming from the roof and skylights.  Jumping out, I glanced out the window and saw that we were, in fact, being treated to a hailstorm of some intensity.

It’s been years since we last got any hail round about Port Swiller Manor, so this was a real treat.  (Fortunately, it was mostly somewhere between pea and marble sized, so did little more than knock down a lot of leaves.)  It was also very cool to sit out on the back porch eating dinner and watching the fog rise all around as the hail melted.

Thanks, Ma!

 

Random Rainy Sunday Question

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

With the rain pattering steadily on the roof of Port Swiller Manor and the dog snoring comfortably at the foot of the bed, it was mighty hard for Ol’ Robbo and Mrs. R to stagger to their collective feet this morning.  The thing lead Mrs. R to ask an interesting question:  Do rainy days like this have the same kind of soporific effect on dogs as they do on people?

Frankly, I’ve no real idea.  I’ve never noticed it with the cats, but then again cats sleep about 20+ hours per day anyway.  Dogs? As I say, I dunno.  But I’ll bet it’s possible.