Sunday, April 03, 2005

“Dry land is a myth.”

The Movie: Waterworld, 1995 (Peter Rader and David Twohy, screenwriter; Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner, dirs.)
Who says it: Kevin Costner as Mariner, a wanderer on the sea
The context: Mariner looks at the strange markings on a girl (Tina Majorino); her companion (Jeanne Tripplehorn) says they are supposed to be a guide to dry land.
How to use it: When you’re surrounded by water.

Just last week I was saying that maybe I could get a little boat, a collapsible kayak or canoe to take out on the river, since the Landing is just down the hill from me. Little did I suspect that I might actually need a boat, as basic transportation.

Gaslight's final performance of Death of a Salesman went on last night as scheduled, in no small part because the spokeswoman for the Maine Emergency Management Agency is a Gaslight board member, and if she said Hallowell wasn't going to flood, it wasn't going to flood.

Even so, the shops on Water Street in Hallowell are empty now. Last night, U-Hauls lined Water Street in Gardiner, as the merchants cleared out everything below doorknob level. I haven't been down to the Hannaford, but there were several refrigerated 18-wheelers in the parking lot yesterday, ready for an emergency load-out.

So far, rumors of a hundred-year flood have been wildly exaggerated. But it seems likely that we'll get some flooding. It's been raining steadily for the last two days, with no sign of letting up. The walk back from St. Joe's this morning showed me the difference between "water-resistant" (which my coat is) and "waterproof" (which it is not).

Dizzy is disgusted. He likes mud, and he loves puddles, but he seems to consider the rain something that I'm personally inflicting on him, as punishment for a transgression he can't remember at all.

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