As I sit here listing my ancient paperbacks on Half.com, it's striking how many of them have water damage. More than I remembered from the floods of 1995, when I lived on the sixth floor but still wound up with a lake in my bedroom every time it rained. Did the housing office give me a discount? Nuh-uh. After my roommate moved out, did they move someone else in, even though the physical plant had declared my apartment the most flood-prone one on the hall? Yup. Universities really are high-rent slumlords sometimes.

Right about now, the floodwaters of Central/Eastern Europe are arriving in Hamburg. Sounds like the dikes will hold up, but I'm still a little nervous for my former adopted hometown. The flood damage that's already happened in Germany and the Czech Republic is sad enough. Blah.