Under the Weather

Literally. It has been raining almost every day for the last two to three weeks. (There have been as many as two not-rainy days in a row this month, I think.)

Now, I don't mind rain or gloom or postal strikes in themselves, but there are practical consequences. First, because we can no longer afford to have professionals mow the lawn, it is now my unfortunate duty to do so, and rain interferes with that something fierce. Mowing in the rain is just plain awful, and mowing still-wet grass is a pain because the grass clumps in the ejector, which means stopping the mower, flipping it over, cleaning it out, restarting it, lather rinse repeat.

A much bigger annoyance was that the group with which I regularly game has traditionally held a day-long gaming session on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend (well, if "five years" counts as a tradition). This year, on Friday, the host announced that because the prediction was for rain all day Saturday and none on Sunday, he was moving it to Sunday. Of course, it barely rained Saturday afternoon and evening and rained a bit on Sunday afternoon, but more importantly, I had made other plans for Sunday and couldn't attend on Sunday at all.

I wasn't completely gaming-deprived over the weekend--one of the attendees of the gaming group had me and two others over for a session of 1835, a long and complex but very entertaining game about the growth of the German railroad system--but I'm pissed about missing the Game Day, since I've been to the previous four. And I won't be able to make it to the regular Friday night sessions for the next two weeks because of other committments. Grump.

For the last few days, I've been muttering that we are suffering the fimbulapril, a never-ending April, because we have upset the ancient gods of the Land between the Rivers. There will be no summer, just endless rain and gloom, until there is peace in Iraq.