Tropical Storm Fay

Well, we haven't washed away yet. Fay seems to have decided that she might like to retire here in Florida. She has parked herself right over us and has spent the last 2 days dumping rain. I think we have gotten well over a foot of rain, and it's still coming down. That's more rain than Tucson, AZ gets in a whole year. I keep wondering when the clouds are going to run out of rain. Where does it all come from?
We are going a little stir crazy with everyone at home, though. Our phone and internet were down for about 18 hours (the power stayed on at least). I never realized how much I rely on the internet to divert me. Also, we can't just send the kids outside when they start to get too crazy. Earlier this afternoon, we put their swimsuits on and let them play in the street for a few minutes (until I started worrying about snakes and alligators and such). Maggie decided to get the mail. Notice the knee deep water. Wait a minute, did the mailman actually venture out into this? Apparently he did yesterday. Our mail was a little soggy, especially after Maggie dropped some of it. But it's ok, it was all junk mail.

Here is a picture of the river that used to be our street. Our neighbor was just coming home from work. He stalled his car a couple streets back and had to walk the rest of the way home. The city just called us and told us that almost every street in the city is underwater and that rescue vehicles can't get through to save people dumb enough to be driving around.

A couple of months ago, we bought a NOAA weather radio, which has been great (at least if you don't mind being awakened at 2 am to be told it's still raining). The highlight of the day yesterday was listening to tornado warnings going off every half-hour. Only one was for our immediate area, so for that half-hour we sat in the hallway with all our quilts and played Old Maid. We're not on the dangerous side of the storm anymore, so at least we don't really have to worry about tornadoes today. The kids get out of school again tomorrow. So much for the first week of school.