Flood

Woke up today to a torrential downpour with lots of thunder and lightning. It sounded pretty awesome, and it was nice to lay in bed for a few and listen to the rain. Then we got up and saw this out the front door.

Youch. That's supposed to be a road. Luckily the larger street at the end of our block is high enough that it didn't have any standing water. No, it just ran right off onto our block instead.. It was seriously about a foot deep, and came right up over the sidewalk. Kelly had to wade through it to head out to work. Blegh. What's really amazing though, is that about an hour later it was all gone! The rain stopped and it all drained right away. I just hope this doesn't happen every time it rains..

Once I was able to leave the house I headed over to Borders to do some research among the cookbooks. With all my cookbooks at home I am without my reference section, and I now find myself very much in need of it as I have a rather fantastic job opportunity presenting itself for which I need to bring my best to the table! Literally. :) This is not a sure thing, but the position I'm interviewing and trying out for starts as a regular production role and then takes on more and more responsibility until taking up the reins as pastry chef. It may be kind of out of my league, but I might as well give it a try. In at the deep end, right? But really this would be a very cushy situation in which to learn how to really be a pastry chef. I've got a 4-day trial later this week, for which I'll be studying up on all the skills I think I may need to call upon, so cross your fingers!

This city has a lot of entertaining wildlife. Here and there you find these little lizards, anoles, sunning themselves on a fence or a rock. I always try to get close to them, but they're very wary and disappear in a flip of the tail and with hardly the rustle of a leaf to betray their passing. I found one halfway through shedding his skin the other day and tried to get a picture. But of course he ran away when I got in too close.
I think I may have stepped on one yesterday. I'm not sure, but something very wriggly came between the arch of my foot and my flip-flop, and I jumped about a foot in the air and performed a series of convulsive karate kicks to dislodge it. Hopefully he was flung to safety and not smashed..

I was recently waiting for the bus and a flappy awkward movement in a small tree next to me caught my eye. Glancing up I saw a ring-necked dove and her two half-grown fledgelings perched about two feet above my head. I could see their abandoned nest a couple of branches away. The chicks had certainly outgrown it, but they weren't very sure of their footing on the tree branches yet. The mother didn't seem perturbed by my presence. One of the chicks stretched his head down and peered right at me for about 30 seconds before shuffling around to sit closer to his sibling. This is the best picture I could manage with my phone.

I like this city.