Rain, rain

It rained so much this weekend. And it seems like it made a special effort to only rain when I was somewhere where I couldn’t get away from it. By this morning, I had only one pair of pants that were dry (out of 5 pairs).

Yohanes had a guy building a guitar he designed in the next town over, Ambarawa. But the guy turned out to not be the most honest guy. He kept giving Yo an “It’ll be finished by” date, then we’d drive there to pick it up, and he’d have some story fabricated. And he would sometimes even go in his house (his guitar building shop is attached to the back of his home) and grab one of his little kids to hold while he made up lies about how his kids were sick so he couldn’t finish or some such. It was really frustrating, but Yo, being Javanese, insisted it wasn’t a big deal. I know he was really disappointed every time we went there and his guitar wasn’t done though. The boy eats, sleeps, and breathes music. Designing and building his own guitar is a dream that has been a long time coming. 

Well, I told him that at the very least, he needed to go see the guy and get his materials back. We had taken over some really nice pieces of wood and strings and a pickup and other stuff for this guy to use to build the guitar. I told Yo that if he didn’t, this guy was just going to use it to build someone else’s guitar. So we went yesterday morning. Right as we were getting into town, it started pouring, so Yo put his rain poncho on, and I ducked under the back of it. I hate doing that though, because then my view is reduced to the road whizzing by beneath my feet and it makes me a little dizzy.

We got to the guitar maker’s place and found that the body had been constructed. We thought that might be the case, so we had brought along a guitar case that fits on like a backpack (for easy motorbike riding!). The rain let up a bit, and we decided to leave with all of Yo’s stuff, which the guy grudgingly gave back to us.  Of course, as soon as we started moving, it started raining again. And of course, the rain poncho went over the guitar which was strapped to my back.  No protection for us!

The drive home was a bit terrifying. In some places, the water on the road was so deep it was over the tops of our feet. In other places, there were mini mudslides over the roads.  That road is really bad and full of potholes, but even those are impossible to avoid when there is so much muddy water rushing across/down the road that you can’t even see the pavement.  The 15-20 minute drive took us almost an hour as we made the whole drive going about 10 kph or less in places.  Every car that went by, naturally, sprayed water up at us, so water even got UP our helmets!  A huge tree branch fell and almost hit us, and lightning was striking and thunder was BOOMING. We weren’t even halfway home before I had so much muddy water in my eyes that my vision was so blurry I could barely see. I was sure thankful that Yo was driving.  He did a fantastic job, even avoiding a truck that pulled in front of us (we almost slid out on the river-like road trying to avoid it!). 

By the time we got home, we were literally drenched. There was not a part of either of us that was not soaked, except possibly the VERY tops of our heads.  Even the money that I had in my pockets  (which I was sitting on) was dripping water when I pulled it out!

(Notice the mini puddle in the crease)

When we got back to my house, I was not too keen on walking through my entire house while leaving a massive puddle with every step. So I snuck into the alley behind my house, stripped down, threw everything on the clothesline, and THEN went inside. While back there, I found my cats huddling, terrified, wet, and shivering, in a sink.  So I carried them into the house with me to find a dry place. Naturally, power was out. Taken down by the storm, no doubt.

I dried off and got changed real quick – right into my flannel PJ pants and a warm sweatshirt, and i curled up on the couch with a good book under a fleece blanket.  It was only a couple minutes before cat jumped up on the couch with me. I thought she was looking for some reassurance that she was NOT about to get electrocuted to death, so I started to pet her while she kind of stared off into the distance.  And then I felt something warm running down me. Siiiiiiiick. Out went the cats. Time for another wardrobe change.

(This is how much my cat peed. Correction, this is how much cat pee made it AROUND me and onto the couch. My clothes and my fleece blanket were all pretty wet. And of course, this is the middle of only three cushions, so I could no longer lay on my couch to wait out the storm.)

So. No electricity means no hot water (no hot shower), no music, no TV, no movies. Cat pee on the couch means no more snuggling with a book. The only other seating options in my house are the toilet, the tile floor, or the kitchen table. (But can’t flush the toilet, and the floor was covered in muddy footprints and the remainder of the cat pee that came out when I threw cat off me.) No electricity also means no water to wash my couch/floor with.  So I decided to SMS Marie to see what she was doing. But my phone had gotten so wet that it didn’t work right. The screen was full of water and the keys were all jacked up.  AND it was still pouring down rain.

Luckily (and unfortunately) the same thing happened to Yo’s phone, so after the storm, he came to get my phone and he took both of them to the repair shop. In the meantime, I am using some old PDA he managed to acquire somewhere. But the stylus thingie is missing, so I have to use my fat fingers on the tiny touchscreen.  It’s amazing how much damage one day of rain can inflict.

(View of rain through my front door. It may not seem like much, but the ground here is made to SOAK UP moisture. I’ve only ever seen my front yard flood like this once – when it rained for almost 24 hours straight. This was only after about an hour of rain.)