Oh, feh.

Sometimes, I hate my brain. Especially when it INSISTS on pointing out the obvious when it is exactly what I DON'T want to hear.

So I’m sitting here, thinking about Things, still trying to find something wrong with the Palace.

But what on earth could anybody find wrong with that beautiful, beautiful house, right next to the river…

River…fed by the water…from the delta…and…the…Sierras…

…waitasecond…

About three minutes later, I was wishing I hadn’t thought about it: The house is not only in a flood plain (shoot, most of the Central Valley is flood plain), but the development itself is cuddled right up against a levee.

Feck.

Feck, feck, FECK.

I informed the husband.

He paled.

“You’re @*^&@ing kidding me,” he said.

We spent a few minutes feebly asking each other if we were, you know, concerned about that. (Um, I grew up in this general area – I can remember at least four !MAJOR! floods just in my brief thirty-{mumble} years. Yeah. I’m ‘concerned’ about it.)

After we got done pretending there was anything to talk about, there was a long moment of silence. We were both depressed. I personally was feeling that maybe, just possibly, $DEITY was indulging in a vicious joke.

I seldom want things that much. I really don’t. But I really, really wanted that house. And it’s rather hard to realize that there’s a major, a very real and immediate threat to not only that particular house, but the entire development.

That the thing I want so much requires living in a place that will flood again – it’s just a matter of time. The more I’ve looked at the maps, where the river is, where the dams are, where the water goes, the more I’m marveling that I didn’t notice it before.

This place is mental.

The area has suffered eleven major floods since the 1920s; the last one in 1997. There was minor flooding in that area last year (major flooding was about ten miles further east, where a ‘permanent-mobile’ home park was under a good eight feet at the worst of it.

On the one hand, it’s just part of life in the Central Valley. We all get nervous when the heavens open up, and watch the runoff reports in Spring. No matter where you are in the Central Valley, even in ‘low risk’ areas like where we currently live, Delta has a way of creeping out of her banks and joining you in your living room.

People talk about the levees and how much work is being done on them and so forth – but Delta is like the great Mississippi. She changes at her own whim. We try to control her, we try to block her from going here and keep her course going this way and keep her waters from spreading chill fingers across our lawns…but she’s going to go where she wants to go.

Levee, or no levee.

I wish I could hate Delta for being the way she is…but people, she is a beautiful and mighty thing. I’ve loved her since I was a kid, when my parents had a houseboat and we’d float along the sloughs and tracts. She’s quiet, deceptively so – you look at that bright surface and slow-looking water, and it’s easy to think she’s no big deal.

But she’s mighty. Oh yes. She is. She is a quiet life and death, implacable and calm, a water-spirit of ancient depth and shallows.

And if she decided she wanted to hop over the levee and see what we were up to on the other side? She would.

Sure, there’s no such thing as ‘safe’ from Nature. There are hurricanes in Florida and tornadoes in Kansas, and not a corner in California that can’t have a nice earthquake shaking things up.

But having realized that we’re basically moving right under the shadow of a dirt levee and trusting that hey – I’m sure that after that whole New Orleans thing, you remember, that hurricane-thing?, our gummint will be looking after these things and doing preventative maintenance and…

Yeah.

Right.

Probably not all that bright a move. It would be a matter of moving in accepting that, at some point during our expected twenty-thirty year tenure, we’d experience at least one major flood. Well. More like two or three major floods. One about every ten years or so.

Even with my somewhat casual approach to material possessions…I don’t think I can handle that kind of risk. Shoot, we’ve lived here for ten years and never gotten around to finishing the backyard or the painting – imagine if we had to repair floor damage every ten years?! “Hey look, honey, now we don’t have to deal with that cracked concrete back there I’ve been meaning to fix – the new flood swept it right away!”

**sigh**

Well, all things happen for a reason. I knew we were ‘itchy’ here in the Den – and since we’ve been discussing it a lot has surfaced. I didn’t know my husband was as unhappy as he is here, and both of us are just plain fed up with the direction of the city, from the streets to the schools.

I think we’re still planning to move. In a way, all that has happened is that a certain weight has been lifted from us – we’re not going to be worrying about when this or that division comes available, or getting any grief if the Den doesn’t sell in a timely fashion; we have more time to get the Den looking sharp for the new owners and if we don’t end up selling? Hey. We’ll have fresh paint, new carpets, and a (mostly) finished backyard, AT LAST.

Still want the Palace, though. And I may just have to go off and pout, sulk and otherwise behave childishly about it for a while. And wonder why $DEITY is being so mean…

Hey, that reminds me of an old joke. There is a mighty flood, and the water has risen hip-high in the streets. A rowboat approaches a man sitting on his porch and the occupants shout to him that they’ve come to rescue him.

“No,” he replies. “The Lord will provide me sanctuary.”

A few hours later, the water is now lapping at the second-story windows. A Coast Guard cutter approaches, and the brisk young men in uniform call out asking if he requires assistance.

“No,” he replies. “The Lord will provide me sanctuary.”

Soon, the water has flooded the entire house and begun lifting it from the foundation. As he sits on his roof, a helicopter descends and they attempt a rescue.

“NO!” he screams up at them. “THE LORD WILL PROVIDE ME SANCTUARY!”

Within moments, he is swept away by the flood and drowns. When he arrives at the Pearly Gates, he storms up to God and reads Him the riot act.

“Lord, I trusted You! Why did You betray me?!”

God rolls His eyes. “Look, Sparky, I sent you a rowboat, a Coast Guard cutter, AND a helicopter – what do you WANT from Me?!”

Thank you, I’m here all week.

…and, apparently, the week after that, and the week after that, and…