June 25, 2006

Rainy Daze

It's been raining for days. Off and on. Between storms, the sun may shine. The air is thick and heavy, humid and sticky. Air conditioning is our friend.

We've had tremendous daily thunderstorms featuring all the elements that makes thunderstorms glorious: torrential downpours, strong winds, roiling clouds, lightning, thunder, power outages. Much more rain is forecast for the upcoming week. Our lawn grass weeds are growing wild.

Thursday night the storms started after we were in bed. I lay there listening to the rain thrash the windows as thunder boomed in the distance then got out of bed to stand on the landing. From there, I can see outside in three directions. With each crack of lightning, every window flashed simultaneously with identical thick muted pulses of light. Fabulous.

We took the dogs for a quick walk Saturday morning between showers. Approaching home, we got a glimpse of our house from an angle we don't normally see. We noticed a huge branch from a pine tree in our side yard has relocated from its home high, high up in the tree to a recumbent position atop our roof. No damage was apparent from where we stood on the ground. We left it there for now. Roof climbing on a slick high wet roof is something we deem Unwise. Since we are Wise, we don't do Unwise things. Nice how that works.

The storms were not exclusive to Northern Virginia: it stormed all over the Commonwealth this weekend. Perfect for a roadtrip through the countryside, yes? Well no. But it was time to trek to Charlottesville to see The Boy perform, so off we went.

We spent the afternoon with The Boy (excellent), saw the show (fine), then drove two and a half hours home through intermittent rain (exhausting). We were nestled snuggly in our bed by 2 am. Yes, late night. The show ran long, but not longer than intended. (Note to theatre directors everywhere: one hour and forty-five minutes is too long for the first act of any show. If I know it, you should know it too. Please.)

It's storming again right now.
I sleep well when it's raining.
Do you?

.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to sleep well when it rained... and I still do, if I'm traveling. Unfortunately, I have a dog who is terrified of rain (thunder, actually, but he thinks every time it rains it's going to thunder), which means when it rains I spend a lot of time comforting and consoling him while he drools and pants all over me. It's not too bad if the rain starts before I go to bed... but he has absolutely no problem waking me up in the middle of the night to alert me to the horrifying situation. I'm too empathetic for my own good. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

I love the sound and smell of rain. But, I live in Oklahoma, so when the wind blows really hard, it scares me a little. And, I have dogs that jump on top of me, because they're afraid of the thunder and lightning. So, I don't sleep very well during storms. deb

Anonymous said...

When I lived on my boat, the rain would pound on the deck above my head. I always found this comforting as I would fall asleep...even now, my cathedral ceilings can produce a similar effect.

Middle Girl said...

These days I'm not sleeping that well, whatever the weather...but, as I recall, when I slept, sleeping during a storm was not a problem. Unless the power went out. If I'm already asleep the the power goes out, fine. If I'm awake-I can't relax enough to sleep.

Teresa said...

Where I live it's 76 and sunny just about every day. As a result I adore rain and thunderstorms, especially in the summer. Wanna swap houses for a month? (After you deal with the branch on your roof.)

A couple of years back one of our huge oaks jettisoned a branch that was just about a tree in itself, but there was no storm to be blamed for it. Ours was just tired, I guess.

Anonymous said...

I love the thunder. I love the rain. And all the rest of it, too. Yes ma'am.

WenWhit said...

Psst... I think Scout wants to feed us to the lesbian-killing dogs!

sporksforall said...

The lesbian killing dogs seem to have a taken a vacation. They're not there right now. And scout DID NOT feed them the antifreeze amuse bouche.

WenWhit said...

Damnit, eb, the picture my mind conjured was so awful I'm suffering after-images! Blech. Retch. Gag. Gargle. Rinse.

You are an awful old fart. :)

Deb Heller said...

I'll trade you about 10 or 20 degrees of heat for some of your rain... Beelzebubba be damned!