Friday Five: Five Things about the Rain

It rained Wednesday. It rained last night. It’s supposed to rain a lot more today and very possibly for several more days in a row. Typically, by February 28, we Californians, especially those of us who live in a rain belt in the Santa Cruz mountains, are talking about 40 days and 40 nights, about building our own arks, about which animals we’d leave off (yes, the mosquito, and don’t even tell me you wouldn’t). All the recent California Facebook posts, though, are about the lovely smell, the sound on the roof, and the hope for some snowmelt. So, for today, as I look at the very wet ground outside my office window and see the next layer of clouds clustering together, I thought I’d give you five of my thoughts about rain this week.

Sometimes I think that gray and green and brown, the colors of my sky and trees this morning, is my favorite color combination ever.
If you lay with your ear on a pillow, the rain running down the rain gutters plays little echoey percussion riffs against your ear drum.
On Wednesday the rain came with some strong wind, and now long curls of Eucalyptus bark are scattered along little road and in our courtyard. Can I tell you how much I love this? I haven’t seen any koalas yet, but I’m still looking.
Alice doesn’t yet know what to do with the rain. She figured out the cat door a few days before the rain started and pretty much fell in love with roaming around our hillside. Really, how many times can you sniff the same vinca vine? I’ve also seen her get SO much more nocturnal, literally sleeping all day, then evening to early morning, going in and out the cat door, checking that we’re still here, going in and out…She’s a happy cat. And then the rain came. The first morning, she came out with me for a few minutes, but meowed in an affronted way as though I hadn’t told her it would be wet. Now, when we open the door, she studies things for a while, eventually choosing a few minutes outside, but not venturing too far from the shelter of the house. This morning, she literally blew up against the front door on a gust of wind, kind of Mary Poppins-like. Another adventure for the kitty.
Heavy rain at 2:00 a.m. sounds very different when 1) you are the mother of a not-yet-driving son and 2) when you are the mother of a driving son who will be getting back from a choir performance sometime that evening and driving home up up a very wet mountain with lots of other tired, wet drivers. It’s still a lovely, cozy sound, but there’s that extra film of worry. Cynthia Jaynes-Omololu said it perfectly on Facebook this week: “I now get to be the parent who worries when their teen is out with the car in the pouring rain.” Parenthood layers onto everything.

If you live somewhere that winter means rain, not snow, what are you thinking about the weather this week? And if you live somewhere that it means snow, I’m sending hope that our increase in rain somehow means a corresponding decrease in the white stuff for you!