I stirs, woken by the oh-so-familiar plop-plop-kerplop, plop-plop-kerplop mantra of water on water. The ceiling is leaking again, and I looks over at the large stove pot which has long since forgotten what it is like to house the comforting aroma of grandmama’s good chicken gumbo. It’s only a little over halfway full. That’s good, though I doubt the buses will still be running today. Rolling over, I check my iPhone – yep, there’s the email: school from home. What a shame. It’s always a hassle to coordinate the class-wide GoogleHangouts call when school is cancelled – there are always a few students “unable” to connect. However, when I confront them about missing class the next day I we meet in person, they always have a convenient excuse – last week, Maddie was complaining that her entire house’s WiFi was out because the rain damaged some part of their wireless technology or something. I actually felt kind of bad when I had to send her to ISS – In School Suspension. She was so earnest, but we all know lying is not a tolerable offense. And there’s no way the WiFi was down – there’s no way a little bit of rain could do that. In fact, President Bell just issued an official statement informing us that our efforts are paying off – Igloo and Glacier, the two last polar bears – just had a cub. As I scroll through Facebook, I see picture after picture of the happy family of bears. It’s been a while since there has been this much news – typically my feed consists of advertisements from different companies trying to sell this face mask that will miraculously remove all of your blackheads or some newly engineered kind of banana that has more protein in it than a chicken breast, peppered with interesting little quizzes claiming to be able to tell your age and weight based on your fashion sense and such. As I scroll through the pictures, I find myself wondering why ten years ago those radicals were making such a big deal about climate change. Life goes on – for us, and even for the polar bears. It’s realizations like this that make me appreciate just how accurate President Bell’s slogan is – it really is just “climate change, NOT everything change.” That being said, I need to at least put on a blouse and brush my hair; class starts in ten minutes, and I have to look presentable from the waist up at least – though my fuzzy purple pajama bottoms are staying on for sure. At least one good thing has come out of all this rain!
|