"Deeper," my wife yelled.
"I'm trying," I yelled back.
"Deeper," she yelled again.
"Not all that easy you know. Want to switch places and see how well you do?"
"That's better."
"Great. As long as you are satisfied."
"Now, wider."
"Wider?"
I grumbled. Then I gave her what I thought was the appropriate response. Fortunately, she could not hear me because of the wind or read my lips because of my hooded outfit -- plus, of course, the natural muting effect of the torrential downpour.
"Keep going," she yelled.
I dug the shovel into the mud and continued trenching, reminding myself how much we needed the rain, how swell it was to be a homeowner, and how good a little hard labor was for the body and spirit, though my spirit was a bit dampened, as was my derriere.
"It's working!" she yelled.
I watched the steady stream of water come out of the plastic spout, through my new trench and over my athletic shoes. Back East I had rain boots, but in Southern California you never need them -- well, almost never.
Our condo is designed so that it has an open-air atrium in the middle. This provides a lot of natural light, which the ferns love almost as much as we do. And just in case we over water, there is a drain that runs from the atrium, under the entire condo and empties out into the landscaping where it is quickly absorbed. That is, unless we have some kind of rare event -- like rain.
I went into the house. My wife was looking out the sliding glass doors into the atrium, which was now only two inches deep with water. At about four inches it enters the house on this side of the atrium and my office on the other side of the atrium. Neither of these two locations makes for a good riverbed.
One time, shortly after we moved in, we put some new plants in the atrium and filled in around them with redwood bark. It looked very nice. But one thing you don't think about, because bark usually just sits on the ground looking beautiful, is that it floats. So, when we had one of our first downpours, all the bark floated gaily to the drain, where it blocked it completely. I remember my wife and I watching the water rise and thinking, huh, maybe bark wasn't such a good idea. When the water hit the three-and-a-half inch mark my wife said: "Probably ought to do something."
"Such as?"
"Bail?"
Which was a great idea -- if there had been someplace to bail to. I ran into the garage and dumped the garbage can onto the garage floor – something my wife did not discover for several days – grabbed two saucepans and headed into the atrium. It was now pouring harder than I had ever imagined rain could pour. I was drenched in seconds. But I scooped saucepan full after saucepan full of water and bark into the trash container. In five minutes it was halfway full. The rain seemed to gain momentum. I couldn't have been wetter if I was standing in the ocean. I hefted the garbage can, discovering how heavy rain water actually is, then I dragged it out of the atrium up over the step from our sunken living room across the entryway to the front door where I tipped the can over so the water ran out the door onto the front steps.
"It's getting higher," my wife said. She grabbed two more saucepans and we both waded into the atrium. In less than five minutes it was half full again and I repeated the routine to the front door. This went on for a half hour before my wife said: "Seems to be letting up a bit."
Half an hour later, the atrium was down almost to normal and we both drank ourselves into oblivion.
The atrium's been fine for quite some time now because, well, we haven't been getting those kinds of storms. This gave the landscaping an opportunity to fill in around the outside spout.
"Was that thunder?" my wife asked. The light in the atrium darkened.
"Do you want to trench or make the drinks," I asked.
"Martini?" she answered.
"Dry," I said. "Very dry."
Read more homeowner adventures in "Ernie's World the Book" and "A Year in the Life of a 'Working' Writer." Both available at amazon.com or erniesworld.com