I spent the night fighting the rain again. I never thought it could rain so much in L.A. They said on the radio this morning there were three deaths in the city due to this storm. Just in the last two days. They also said L.A. has received twice as much rain as Seattle this year. So much for living in the desert.

I had a fairly large and important gutter project I wanted to bust out yesterday. I went and got all the materials from HoDe two days ago. I wanted to be all set so I could finish, AND have it cleaned up in one day. There is a roof gable along the back of my house that's 36' long. As it was, when we got rain, the water would drip right off the edge and make a huge mess of puddles along the house foundation. I was not able to sit on my back steps under the eave and watch the rain, as so much was bouncing up on me. And all that water cascading into the backyard just tore the ground up. There were big splashes of mud against the side of the house. And the ground was starting to crack and erode. Like an arroyo. It was time.

In the past I've undertaken a project such as this and had it NOT work as planned. Somehow despite the effort, the pitch will be incorrect, or the joints in the gutter fail. So I thought this water diversion project through quite a bit before I started. I determined that the center of the 36' run would be the high point. And then it would pitch down towards both ends. That's where I intended to tie-in the downspouts. My gutter would begin with a high center, and then drop about 2" for each 10' of the run. The downspout on the east side of the house would dump water harmlessly into rafiel's driveway. Where it had previously been flowing into my crawlspace. The downspout on the uphill side was somewhat more of a problem. Situated on an 8% grade, all the water my gutter gathered and sent down the pipe to ground would still be coming irrestibility across the yard, seeking a low point. I was not entirely sure where that would be.

I worked for several hours nailing the new gutters to the eave. It felt good to be out with my belt and my tape-measure. The forecast was rain for the aftrenoon, so I moved quickly. Efficiency is important on a job like this. Ponce came over from next door and helped for awhile. The old man's a retired sprinkler fitter and he can't help but get involved in a construction project. As I nailed up one end of a 10' gutter, he would support the other side with a 2" X 4". There was still to put the level on and assure that thye channel pitched correctly. When they looked right and the pitch was correct, I nailed them down. And just as I had arrived at the trickier downspout intended for the uphill side of my yard, the first raindrops began to fall. Ponce and I exchanged a look. It was time to see our first downspout work.

We knelt down in the driveway and stared at the tube's exit. Raindrops ticked off my rubber slicker. Nothing. Goddamn. I asked Ponce what he thought. More rain was the answer. A few drops came out the downspout's mouth. And then someone turned up the rain. It rained loud. A deluge. Ponce and I smiled at one another nervously, wiping water off our brows. This was definitely the big stuff. Goddamn. The noise on the roof was deafening. The downspout began gushing, gurgling and shooting outwards. I whooped. Yes. I was so happy. The flowing water delighted me. And it terrified me. My lips moved unconsciously, repeating calculations as I took in the new hydro-diversion project on my lot. There was one gallon per second coming out that tube. It flowed like the bathub spigot in a five star hotel. All that water had previously been flowing under my house. No wonder it smelled so funky sometimes, I thought.