It has been raining cats and dogs and my dog doesn’t mind (just don’t ask him to take a bath)

Well, we are a week and half through July and I feel like I’m still waiting for summer to begin. I’m sure you have noticed, but it’s been raining… a lot.

When I went up to Tomahawk two weeks ago to play baseball with the Abbotsford Merchants (play might be a strong word for what I was doing, but I digress), it rained on and off through the first six innings, slanting into the dugout and being right on the edge of playable. But Tomahawk had already needed to make up two games due to rain delays, so we played through it.

Was there any irony in the weather being terrible for the first real baseball game I’d played in over a decade? Maybe, but given how the summer has gone thus far, it would have been almost miraculous if it hadn’t rained.

According to data recorded at the Central Wisconsin Airport of the observed weather, 22 days of the 30 days in June saw some sort of precipitation. The trend continued into July, with it raining on five of the 10 days thus far. That’s 27 of our 40 days for those keeping count, which I don’t believe is ideal for anyone.

Something must be up with our weather requests. Is there some sort of delay, perhaps? Maybe all the calls for rain last summer are finally coming through now? Perhaps the weather-making department is still running on fax machines and they’ve been bogged down for years?

Whatever it is, I think some common sense needs to take over at some point. Come on Mother Nature; do you really think that we were all asking for almost non-stop rain for the last six weeks? And in case the sarcastic tone of that question is not coming across, the answer is very much “no, no we did not.” I feel like you’ve been doing this long enough to realize, but moderation is everything with these things. A happy medium between last June and this June would be perfect. Thanks. Can’t wait until next summer when you finally get this message.

With it being so wet out, it kind of feels like our summer days have been slipping by faster than I would like. June is always busier than I think it will be and between us moving to a new program to layout the paper here and taking care of Indy at home, there were certainly some unplanned things that, when combined with the rain, kind of made my June disappear in the blink of an eye.

Speaking of Indiana, he’s settled in quite nicely. He doesn’t seem bothered by rainy walks, so I don’t think he minds the excessive amounts of precipitation that we’ve been getting. But try and give him a bath and it’s a completely different story.

He’s allergic to bathtubs and even the lure of peanut butter could not coax him into jumping into one. Too smart for his own good, the goof ball. With the bathtub option momentarily discarded, we invested in a plastic outdoor pool, hoping that the different shape and the fact that it was outside and not inside the scary bathroom would be enough to tric–er…convince Indy to get in.

But no, that was a non-starter as well. The way he was drinking out of it, I wondered if he was trying to drain the thing so that there wouldn’t be any water left to bathe him with. So I guess I just bought a really big water dish. Bah…back to the drawing board on that front. Maybe just lather him up when we inevitably have to take a rainy walk again? We have had no shortage of opportunities on that front.

Though, now that I’m looking at the weather forecast… is it actually going to be sunny? Did those old fax machines finally chug all those old requests? Don’t play with my emotions, 10-day weather forecast from the Weather Channel. I’d really like for summer to finally start, if that’s okay with you. Cool? Cool. Nice doing business with you.

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

BY

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER