Ahhh, the smell of 2 a.m. in the rain...

Last night was just one of those nights.

It rained all day yesterday. ALL. DAY. I applied for jobs. I thought wishful thoughts about running. I drank 16 cups of tea.

Finally, I deemed it was time to stop "working" for the day, after having complained, over gchat, MSN Messenger and Facebook chat to at least 47 of my friends that I was going stir crazy. STIR CRAZY!

(I will apologize now for my excessive use of caps in this post. But it's my blog. And I'm in an ALL CAPS mood.)

So I watch an episode of "Deadliest Catch" on Netflix streaming. I finish my last library book and reserve some new ones online that I saw at the bookstore. I watch a second episode of "Deadliest Catch" -- or I start to. The Internet stops working and the rain begins to fall harder.

OK, no sweat. I'll watch a DVD. I have seen every DVD on the boat at least 6 times, and I've seen all of the movies in the last year.

So no DVD.

Well, there must be a book on this boat to read. I haven't pulled any new books down on my iPod for a while because I'd gotten a bunch of new books at the library. This was a MISTAKE. A biiiiiiig mistake.

There is nothing to read. So I read a couple chapters of the Bible. I read the last chapter of a mystery I've already read 300 times. I open my copy of "Navigation Rules," the scintillating publication put out by the Department of Homeland Security.

Finally I find a magazine to read in bed. An old copy of Outside one of my friends gave me when she was done with it.

I lay in my berth as the boat rocks back and forth, back and forth, backandforthbackandforth, and tries to dump me on the floor. I get up for water. I watch the water in my cup slosh back and forth. I feel slightly sick.

Around 2 a.m., I hear a huge thump. Anything hitting the side of the boat makes a huge bang inside. Even people knocking on the door is kind of scary-sounding.

I know that this knocking, which clearly is on the starboard side, is the boat hitting the dock.

I argue with myself for a while. Most boat owners would be blissfully unaware of their boat smacking the dock in the middle of the night, I think. Maybe it won't happen again, I think. Yes, it probably won't happen again. I'll fix it in the morning.

It happened again.

Grumpy as can be I pull on an old pair of Costco Fuggs (fake Ugg boots -- they're warm, OK?) and my Henri Lloyd pink rain jacket over my flannel pajamas. I venture out into the pouring rain to discover that the floating dock has risen in the high water. I can barely stand on the dock, the wind is blowing so hard, but I manage to move my fenders and double my lines.

I come back inside and manage to fall back asleep. After about an hour.

Of course I wake up at 9 a.m. when my alarm goes off and feel like someone has just hit me over the head with a frying pan. So I read the magazine I'd started the night before and answer my e-mail from the bed using my phone. Thank you, technology.

Around 9:30 a.m. my mother calls me. This means one of two things at this time of the day on a school day: Someone is sick/dying/in the hospital or something even worse has happened.

Thankfully, it was neither today.

"I'm on my way home from school," she says.

What?!

Immediately I get out of bed to check a different clock than my alarm clock. Yep. It's really 9:30 a.m.

"Why?" I ask.

"No power. There was a tornado in Parkville last night."

WHAT?!

I open my laptop and start pulling news articles from The Baltimore Sun's website. Damned if there wasn't a severe storm last night in the county! The storm damage pictures on the site feature downed trees the size of cargo ships.

What a nice night to be on the water, right?

It's moments like these that I wonder why I do this...