What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Sorry, guys. I figured a few folks might speculate, but until I got a call from Claire yesterday it didn’t occur to me that anybody might actually worry. That pesky ratio of hermits to people skills is showing its ugly face again, I’m afraid. I could have done this earlier.

Yeah, my connection has gone down entirely. For a brief shining moment I thought I might be able to send a short note yesterday afternoon, but the modem was only teasing me. So I’ve packed up the laptop and I’m posting this pre-written note via Geiger Counter Guy’s wireless, which is not a permission he’s prepared to grant every day because he also has download limits.

I’m working on it. In fact a service technician almost made it to the Secret Lair yesterday, and it’s no fault of his that he didn’t. I had one of those “sometime between 12 and 4” insincere promises and the guy actually called me before 12 to get directions. When the boys and I met him at the gate to guide him in he was friendly and appeared competent and was driving a capable 4X4. And that last part was good, because he arrived just in time for a monumental, terrifying toad-strangler of a storm which dumped so fast and hard I wanted to hurry and get back on the Lair’s side of the washes before they flooded. But first I had to get out of the Jeep and get drenched to inform him that I could get him in but he wouldn’t be able to leave again, which he’d already figured out himself. (It didn’t occur to me til later while I was changing into dry clothes that I do possess a cell phone and his number, and maybe could have conducted that conversation in greater comfort.) He made the intelligent but disappointing choice and went away, whereupon the sun came out and the rest of the afternoon was really quite dry and pleasant once the gullies stopped running. It got so dark during the storm that when it cleared the rooster came out and crowed. (The chickens were the only living things that stayed dry. Ghost was disgusted with my mismanagement, but I am extremely proud of my chicken coop.)

So God has now stepped in to take an active hand in the celestial TUAK prevention effort.

Speaking of that, GC guy told me a few days ago that this has been the wettest Monsoon for which he can find records by a factor of nearly two. Average annual rainfall here in the past fifteen years – counting this year – is ten inches. We’ve had seventeen since the start of July. Which is great for the grass, don’t get me wrong, but it’s literally mucking up my life. I’m used to dangerous dry humidity and fierce glare, punctuated by occasional short blurps of Ragnarök. I like it; the tourists just slide on past and leave me alone. Now it’s looking like all the sharp pointy things will die to make room for rain forest. Which, given the record of the petrified wood, isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.

So anyway, I’m sorry for the failure to communicate. I’m just fine, really. But TUAK (and my email capability) is down and will remain down for the immediate future, and I’m reduced to my pay-by-the-minute Tracfone for comms. Please do feel free to send lawyers guns and money, because the internet provider has informed me that I’m paying for any equipment replacement they eventually get around to performing.