Back when I lived in Connecticut, I returned after a summer away to discover that the basement, where I’d been storing my stuff for the summer, had flooded, and my photos, books, and film journals had been soaked. In some cases they were salvageable, and in other cases, I had to chuck them. So, I learned my lesson: never store anything valuable in a basement unless it’s off the floor. Flash forward ten years, we’re in our own home (and since it’s California, there’s no basement), and I’m storing stuff in our garage/office. On the floor, yes, but what’s going to happen? Well, an unseasonable rain happened last week, and as it rained for a night and a day, the water seeped in under the garage door and up through the dozen or so boxes stored on the floor at the end of the garage. My film journals and most of my books were off the floor, though; I had learned that lesson. This time, the victims were CDs, a bunch of Tintin stuff, and posters stored flat in the giant boxes I’ve been lugging around since college. It could have been a lot worse, but there’s a lot of wrinkly, water-stained stuff out drying around the house these days. I lost a couple of one-of-a-kind posters, but most everything else dried out. The eco-friendly paper CD cases didn’t fare very well, and are pretty useless now, but as Aimee said, the CDs still play, right? Speaking as an archivist, though, that’s not the point… She had a photo album that got soaked; she somehow had the ability to just throw the whole thing out, which I could never do. Apparently they were all duplicate photos, so it’s not a total loss. Maybe the real lesson from the whole experience is “Don’t save so much stuff,” but it’s a little late for that. It’s time to get a garage door threshold seal and once again learn to never store anything at ground level, no matter how infrequently it rains. We’re off to Catalina for a quick trip this weekend, which should be fun. I just found out I’m heading to St Louis the week after next for the annual film archiving conference, which should be a lot of fun, as well. Marathon training is going well; I’m averaging about 35 miles a week, which is cutting into my time not spent at work or asleep, but I’ll make it work. Muddy Buddy next weekend, too – I hope I can still ride a bike up a hill.