WHAT A PERFECTLY HORRID WEEK ON TOP OF AN UNFORTUNATE COLLECTION OF PERFECTLY HORRID WEEKS!!

Early on Monday afternoon our director sent us home with the advisement to return the next day after daylight to ensure our commute roads were clear.

I made it to work the next day by 0930 although I had some concerns about a bayou I cross (who knew that Georgia has bayous this far north?) and it took until Friday afternoon for the water level to drop away from level with the roadway. Yes, I said level. Why they didn't close that road is beyond me.

By the day after that the sun had made a brief appearance and things went back to normal-think SNAFU. Really. But I digress.

I am living in an official disaster zone, and it is disconcerting to say the least-it all just crept on me and frankly everyone else in the area.

I need to do somethings around the house, and this drought breaking/record breaking rain has been going on really for nearly three weeks. I took my holiday from my birthday until the 8th of September and dang me if it didn't rain nearly every day!

I took the time off to get the windows caulked, the house cleaned top to bottom, the bedroom converted to a storage room, the last pruning before Autumn sets in.

Oh well, so much for that idea, and I buried myself in Peak Oil research, good books, and my latest crochet project-a scarf/shawl done entirely in single crochet.

As it's been raining since the last day of August, I've read several books, learnt quite a bit more about Peak Oil than I thought I could (Have you seen A Crude Awakening? Google it.

I went back to work on the 8th-OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME FIND A REAL JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have three co-workers who think it's OK to play the race card if they're called on clocking in and immediately going on a ten-twenty minute break.

Hello, the President is bi-racial, the race card shouldn't work anymore honey, it's been punched off for the last time.

So Friday they pull the old "We can't get along with her" (meaning me, the only white) and are pissed they aren't getting away with it because they made the mistake of pulling it while our director was in the next work area.

I'm going along doing my work, reorganizing something I'd found out of date when suddenly the one who sucks up to the management team (while bringing them treats and pulling that 'sassy mammy' crap, she is openly contemptuous of them the minute they leave the room) says to me that I've got a chip on my shoulder and if I have a problem with her I should talk to her about it.

WTF??

So I tell her I do have a problem with her saying I have a chip on my shoulder when I don't even know what the er, hell, she is on about. The next thing I know three very pissed off black women are on me about how angry I seem, stomping out of the room (HUH??) and one of them says they only care about me and that I must be upset about something...

Well, no, I wasn't but I am now, dammit.

I try to patiently explain that I am just trying to get my work done without making a mistake, but I make a point of telling them perhaps we need visit HR and get this straight because I don't want a hostile work environment...

I also make a point of going to my supervisor-also black, and who frequently tells people "it's a white man's world", and "now that we have a black president whites are gonna get a taste of what it's like to be the minority." Uh oh.

I'm not prejudiced, but I'm maybe getting there, so I consult a mental health professional on my way home work last night, who advises I find a new job. No, ya think? In this economy, me, a 53 year old white woman. Righteeo there Doc.

So I live for the hours after work, and I live for the weekend, and I live for the day Dr. King can stop rolling in his grave, and I live for the day all of the people who've died for racial equality to stop being a dream and start being a reality won't have died in effing vain.

Jeez, it's like the people I work with don't want equality, they want revenge. They are proving all of the racist stereotypes, and I don't know what to do except spew this out to my friend who mercifully doesn't charge me for consults.

Who tells me the world has gone truly mad, and I should find a new job so I can keep prepping for TEOTWAWKI.

Oh yeah, this is great.

The rain started again about noon today and I watched in disbelief as the meadow 20 yards from my house began to fill with water. On go the boots and rain coat, out the door I go to check on my neighbours-do they know water is feet from their back door; they hustle uphill to their friend's place on a level with mine and we watch the growing pond form as we shout across flooding lawns and gardens (did I mention that Monsoon One wiped out my winter square foot garden?) "Should we bug out??"

Which is stupid since we live on the highest point in town, and to get to any higher ground (about ten miles south west) we would have to go down through an even lower point than our meadow.

I come back inside and since we still have power I search the Internet until I find a Google Earth map of our neighbourhood and start plotting a way off this ridge on foot. Plus I pull the inflatable rafts from car and house BOBs (bug-out bags) just in case because now I am noticing the water is creeping up my foundation-the Tin Shack is on a cinder lock foundation, and I'm damned glad I parked the KIA on the highest point in my yard...

Then it hits me, and I pull the boots and rain coat back on, and get my neighbour to go check the end of the meadow with me...

We had a blockage from debris picked up in run-off. We cleared the blockage and the water drained off within ten minutes. Oh thank-you God, because frankly I could have used hip waders in there, the water had to have been four foot deep, deeper in some places.

We'll be taking turns through the night to ensure the blockage isn't repeated.

Oh, I love climate change.