A post post

Last time I was complaining that sometimes the post office is closed unexpectedly because of some federal holiday or other that Mrs Walles and I do not mark (not that we wouldn't be keen to mark said holidays, of course, its just that not everyone gets them off).

Now I'm going to balance things out by extolling the virtues of something that all Americans take for granted, but that to me is like magic.  In America if you put outgoing mail in your mailbox, the mail man will take it away for you, with no fuss.  You can have all your gilt bathrooms and antique ivory back scratchers: as far as I'm concerned this is the epitome of luxury.


I was vaguely aware of this before I came here.  Movies had taught me that in the US mailboxes had a little red flag on the side that had something to do with sending mail.  As a child I was deprived in the mailbox department because we had a post office box instead.  But things have changed.  Now I have one of those fancy American mail boxes (approved by the Postmaster General himself, no less!) complete with the little red flag.  Mrs Walles and I spruced ours up last year with a fresh coat of paint.  I was going to put up a photo but when I found this almost identical one on Wikipedia I decided I could save myself the trouble.

Ironically the red flag isn't necessary.  You just put the mail you want to send inside in the morning and later that day you find it gone, typically replaced with screeds of glossy catalogues and fliers and the occasional bill.  Every time I do it I'm tempted to put the little flag up, just to get into the spirit of the thing, but then I think twice and realise that the flag would be a signal not just to the mail man but also to any nefarious characters who wonder if any of our correspondence is worth pilfering.

At least it's still there, though, the cherry little flag, just like in the movies.  Even if its duties are only ceremonial, it is nice reminder of where I am (well, that and the enormous flag the neighbours have over their door).  And flag or no flag I can still send mail without setting foot off the property.  Can you?

Wet feet

The rain that has beset us for some weeks now is set to depart.  According to the National Weather Service we can expect the sun to appear in a couple of days time.  To which I say: what is this "sun" they speak of?  It's not quite as bad as that but there have been a lot of grey days in the past few weeks, very little sun and an awful lot of rain.

Last Wednesday the rain was particularly awful as it started seeping into our basement.  Fortunately I just happened to go down there as it started so I was able to reduce its impact.  Nothing was really at risk, except an old bed which was quickly moved out of harm's way.  But there were a lot of cardboard boxes down there that I have been slowly cutting up and disposing of.

Of course I'm not used to having a basement, but they are ubiquitous here.  Not every American home has a basement (in some places the water table is too high to make them practical, for one thing) but they are extremely widespread.  I can tell you now that they are a double-edged sword.  On the one hand it's like having a whole extra level to the house, and somewhere to hide all those annoying utilitarian machines - which in the case of a typical American home means at least the washing machine and dryer, the hot water cylinder and the central heating and air conditioning.  We have all of these in our basement, plus enough space to have a little room down there, finished and carpeted which we use to hold the spillover when we have guests to stay.

The bad part is that you have a big empty underground chamber beneath the house that's only too happy to fill with water if the conditions are right.  To counteract this they have drainage built in and are sealed to prevent even damp getting in.  They are impervious to water, or at least they are supposed to be.  But if you have a little hole, and erosion of the soil around the foundation, all it takes is a good strong rainstorm for the water to start pouring in.  And that's what happened to us last week.

It's not normally a problem but the ground is already so wet (we could grow rice in the back yard at the moment) and there was such a cloudburst, that the water had nowhere to go.

So I spent the rest of last week cutting up boxes and bagging them ready for disposal.  Now I just have to mop the floor with bleach and we'll be just about back to normal.  Apart from that nagging feeling whenever the rain comes that the basement might be filling with water, spurring yet another visit downstairs to ease my mind.  I'm looking forward to some sunny weather.