Painting lattice with Sikkens makes it rain

The man at the paint shop said, "Sikkens is great stuff. It's beautiful...but it's also very unforgiving.
No kidding.
Sikkens Deck Finish has to be applied by hand with a natural bristle brush. It can't be applied with a roller or a spray painter. It can't be applied in direct sun, and if it rains on it before it dries--I hear that it turns gummy and white.
Making sure to follow all of the rules, I have been using Sikkens products on my deck for the past 3 years with great results.
Now......
Recently, because the deck sits high above the ground, we decided it would look nice with some lattice around the bottom.
Of course, then I realized I was going to have to paint it too.
Painting 9 foot tall lattice with a brush is like trying to put together a 2,000 piece Jigsaw puzzle of the ocean and blue sky.
It's HARD.















I've been outside for several days, painting and painting.
Today, after I finished the last two sections, I stood back and admired my work.
It looked beautiful
But then, just 3 hours later, the sky filled with dark clouds.
What? Auuuugh.
It takes about 5 hours for Sikkens to dry properly.
I went out and touched some of the lattice boards. They were still tacky.
OH NO.
Thunder crashing; lightning flashing--as the wind picked up and the rain began to fall, I rushed out and put a drop cloth around one section of lattice that I had done and tried to get a big trash bag secured around the other.
Well, the trash bag blew away almost immediately and last time I checked, water from the deck above was starting to fall behind the drop cloth.
Too dark for me to see now.
As I sit here now watching the rain and worrying about wet paint, I am reminded of something that happened when I was in 5th grade at St. Mary's elementary school (a long, long time ago) .
Sister Dominic was walking around the room asking everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Several boys said that they wanted to be policemen or firemen.
A few others wanted to be doctors.
One boy said that he knew he would be an astronaut one day.
The nun said, "very good" to each of these responses.
Most of the girls said they wanted to be nurses, or teachers, or moms (those were about the only choices girls had in the 50s anyway).
Their answers also brought nods of approval.
And then, Sister Dominic asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
In my most confident voice, I said: "I want to be a saint."
Sister Dominic started laughing as soon as she heard my response so, of course, the rest of my class decided to laugh too.
Ha..ha...ha...
HEY!
It seemed like the logical occupational choice to me.
In Catholic school, we were taught that saints were closest to God.
Right?
I figured that, life here being incredibly short and the afterlife being interminably long, it would be a good idea to get as close to God as I could.
Why waste time being a nurse or a teacher...when I could cut straight to the point and just be a saint?
Oh well.
Apparently my logic only made sense to me.
Finally, after an eternity and a half, the laughter died down and Sister moved on to her next victim, who was smart enough to say something acceptable.
He wanted to be a priest.
Ooooh...of course....that was a good one.
I folded my arms and frowned.
The bell rang and it was time to go home.
Thank God for having mercy on my poor soul.
I was almost out of the door when Sister Dominic stopped me.
She handed me 4 little books and said, "If you really want to be a saint, start reading about the lives of other saints so you will know what you have to do."
Ok fine.
I started reading through the books as soon as I got home.
One saint beat himself with a whip every day to show his love for God?
Another saint wore a horse hair shirt to cause himself pain all day long, so that he could be closer to God?
And then there was the one who didn't eat anything for weeks and half-starved to death to make herself more acceptable in God's eyes?
What? What?
This is what saints do?
It didn't make any sense to me at all.
In fact, if I was God, I would be angry at these people for doing this to themselves.
I thought---if God wants everyone to be all cut up, bruised, and scratchy, why didn't God make us this way when we were born?
I put the books down.
Either something was wrong with these self-mutilating saints or something was terribly wrong with God.
SO ...WHAT was I going to be when I grew up then?
I didn't know.
I still don't know.
Ooops...I'm 52 and running out of time.
Maybe I can still become a saint?
If the rain ruined the Sikkens on those two sections of lattice, it's going to take the patience of a saint to sand it off and start all over again.
It's 2 in the morning and I can't sleep.
My imagination is working over time.
I shudder to think what might be waiting out there for me now.