I woke up to a steady rain this morning. My first thought was that it was good for my garden. My second thought was, I wonder how much this is going to delay the road construction that makes me never want to leave the house.

But I did get out on my errands this morning, and when I returned, I saw something that made me do a double take. Literally, my neck twitched and my eyes squinted. I had to be sure I was seeing it.

Yes, in the rain, for the first time since I've lived here, the automatic sprinklers came on in my garden. These are the same automatic sprinklers that my landlord promised two months ago that he would fix. He would have to fix them because they didn't work.

And yet here they were, eight or ten of them each spraying an area about a foot and a half in diameter, areas already soaked from a morning of steady rain, re-saturating these areas with the same well water that I refuse to drink or even brush my teeth with. I do shower and wash dishes and do laundry in it, but not at the same time, usually. Besides, that water is usually hot.

Suzanne came by this afternoon and we went to lunch in Sebastopol. It was such a pleasure to be going somewhere and not have to drive, especially in the rain. I lose patience with other drivers almost every time I venture out. No one seems to be paying attention to other cars, road signs, or lane markings. Signal? Who signals? They'll make a turn right in front of you. They'll change lanes with no regard for whether or not I'm already occupying the one they think they have to be in.

Add water, and I get all stirred up about it. As bad as I think all these other drivers are (and I think they're all worse than I am), a wet road makes them even stupider. One advantage of living here at the Fortress is that it's so far off the road that I'm that much further removed from the danger of cars slipping and sliding into me.

So we had a nice lunch at a little Italian café on Main Street. We haven't seen each other much the last couple of weeks, so we got caught up on what's going on in our lives. She told me about school, and I told her about whatever it is that I do.

World Series notes: For the first time in the post season, the loss of Derek Bell in the division series opener came back to hurt the Mets. If Bell had been available, Bobby Valentine wouldn't have used Kurt Abbott to pinch hit for Timo Perez, a move which made little sense to me. He wasted Darryl Hamilton without getting him to the plate, and Bubba Trammel ended up playing right field by the end of the game. Who was his next outfielder going to be, Turk Wendell?