First, let me apologize to everyone in the Northeast, especially everyone in Central New York. The rain? I'm afraid it's our fault. It wasn't malicious, mind you. We didn't call upon the heavens to pour down a watery wrath that would flood basements, back up septic systems and drown tomato plants.

We're as upset about the whole thing as you are.

We didn't even do it on purpose.

See, what happened was this: We brought the weather with us.

Remember back in March when we had that really remarkable gift of springlike temperatures, and the snow melted a little, and you started to think, "Maybe I don't have to escape to Florida, after all"? Yeah. That was us. That was the weekend we arrived in New York, and WE thought, "Feh - this isn't nearly as brutally cold as everyone warned us it would be." See, we had brought with us a little of that Florida spring, which begins right around the end of February and ends abruptly two weeks later when the godawful heat and humidity descend like uninvited house guests and smother everything in sight.

That's when summer starts. And it doesn't stop until sometime around Thanksgiving. If you're lucky. There have been Christmases when I had to wear shorts and a T-shirt to deck my halls, taking frequent breaks for iced tea.

If the heat and humidity don't break your fragile, sweaty spirit, the rain might.

Some days it rains nonstop. Hot, bloated drops of rainwater falling in sheets, overrunning gutters, flooding lawns and turning side streets into racing currents.

Other days, you think you will get a reprieve, only to hear the telltale claps of thunder in the afternoon and early evening - thunderclaps that tell you your drive home from work will be slower and wetter than you would have liked.

And because it is Florida, you can sand on any street corner and see at least four or five groups of tourists surrounded by the particular funk of a rainy vacation.

"What's THIS?" they say with every physical expression. "I thought Florida was sunny. I can't take pictures of THIS."

My family thought we would be getting away from all that when we moved up here. (Well, getting away from everything but the tourists, that is. We're not complete idiots.)

We were here the same time last year, and it was heavenly. We gathered with our cousins in a boat on Otsego Lake to watch the fireworks and hear them echo along the banks on either side. We wore sweatshirts that night, and called our sweaty friends back in Florida just to gloat.

We even stayed an extra week because Florida was under the influence of the other evil "H" of summer:

Hurricanes.

And now, a year later, we are here and so is the rain.

We couldn't be more sorry.

If it is any consolation, you should know that we've been emptying the basement dehumidifier more times a day than we can count.

The little herb garden I attempted to plant from seed is a total wash. I think I see little sprouts of chamomile, chives and catnip clumped together in the lowest corner of the garden, where the rain washed all the seeds.

And the rest of our 15 acres is beginning to resemble a Grimm's fairy tale setting, all overgrown and scary. How can this water be so bad for my herbs and so good for a field full of weeds?

And back in Florida? Oh, they're complaining all right. They're complaining about their drought. All those sunny days stacked end-to-end are getting on their nerves. They're having trouble keeping their lawns watered.

All I can say is that we're really and truly sorry. We had no idea this would happen, and if we could send our weather back to where it belongs, we certainly would.

In the meantime, let me promise that, should any of our tomato plants bear fruit this year, you'll get first pick.

No, really. It's the least we can do.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who knows firsthand that making an "A" in college meteorology class doesn't make one a weather girl. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@hughes.net.