A gentle patter woke me this morning around five. Sprinkling. Water from the sky hitting the ground. I lay there in bed listening intently with the door open. Dozing a bit. Amazed by this most unusual of sounds. Suddenly a rain drop or two hit my head, and I reached over my head to slide the door shut with a thump.
We live in a desert. Rainfall here is only 10 inches a year. Imagine there are parts of the world that get hundreds of inches a year and carry 2/3 of the world’s fresh water. Here, in our desert paradise the land grows dryer as we get 80% of our water from the Colorado River. Rain is foreign to our world. Water in any form is hard to come by.
As I lay there tucked up next to G listening, a car hissed by on the wet pavement. The wind picked up. Leaves fell against the patio glass with a soft sound. The sound of water dripping in a downspout with a tick, tick caught my ear and fascinated me.
Finally I couldn’t stand it any more. I left G to his dreams and, wrapped in my worn old blue robe got up to push my nose tightly against the glass. I saw a world in which the light from the street lights broke into shards reflected on the street. I could see waves of rain caught in the headlights of passing cars. Light fell on the wind-twisted leaves caused the world to take on a pointillistic effect through the glass. The steam from my breath muted the world.
On the roof, rain hitting the shingles thrummed gently through the house. Other down spouts began their rarely heard drip and drop almost with a waterfall sound up and down the alley. As the downfall increases, even individual drops hit the pavement with a sharp twang offering a counterpoint to the humming on the roof. The first plane of the day takes off with the rain muffling the roar of its exhaust and whine of its turbines. I could almost imagine myself on the morning rocket to Los Angeles. Heinlein rules again.
I laugh into my coffee and settle into the morning newspaper with a smile.
0930: Image from One America Plaza of the bay. The Midway aircraft carrier to the left and the Oosterdam, right on the bay. A shower coming in off the ocean on the right side of the image over my house.
Live San Diego Harbor Web Cam
Me: Inching my way along. Really good day. Second day of tooth pain. I awake with none and it grows all day. It’s amazing what will take over one’s day. Still slightly runny nose. I won’t be here tomorrow. I’ll be dealing with drunks and food service workers at the Raider/Charger game.
G: Mucho better at last. He’s still doing research but longing for real work. I reminded him that work at least wasn’t boring. Next week he might be doing something totally different. He reminds me that he still has a job.
Duck: Got cable in his room, and just because he was in bed, the installer ran the cable every which way across the room, the art, the curtains, plunking his staples where ever very intrusively. Neither Duck or we were impressed. We were joking around at one point, and he asked me if I could see his dog too. G thinks he was joking. I sure hope so.
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