Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The rain rain rain came down down down....

The snow started at nine this morning -- much earlier than the four-in-the-afternoon the TV news weatherpersons were predicting.  It was still raining, heavy wet rain, with melty snow mixed in -- dime-sized flakes hitting the windshield, about five or six, splatting wetly over my viewpoint, before the wiper blades wiped them away, and again, and again. 

It didn't feel cold outside, was the odd part.  Still felt warm enough that I am wearing my little coat, my car coat, not the long woolen overcoat I wear in the snow.  Carrying my giant umbrella, but that's just because both my smaller umbrellas have broken spines, so I've got to either figure a way to fix them, or make up my mind to throw them away.  Don't want to throw them away, either of them.  One of them a beautiful royal blue Klimt design that my dear Jessica gave me, years ago, and the other a small compact fold-able one of Black Watch plaid that I just particularly like.  Still, I'm not sure they can be fixed.  Why aren't there umbrella repair shops?  It ought to be very easy to remove and replace a broken spine, and think of all the business you would have!  Perhaps I should learn the art of umbrella repair and open my own place.
Anyway, the snow continued for about an hour, and has now completely stopped.  Still raining, however, very wetly, and mirabile dictu! -- it feels significantly colder than it did this morning.  Isn't that odd?  Unlikely?  Isn't snow merely rain in the cold?  So how does that work?  And another question I have about rain -- the size and velocity of the drops seem to have little or no rhyme or reason to it.  Sometimes a tiny, misty droppage of minuscule drops, other times large fat drops falling without much impetus behind them, other times the drops are driven down as by a powerful wind, but the winds aren't blowing downwards, they are blowing east or west or north or south.  The size and velocity of today's rain has changed several times, and who knows why?  Is it the pressure in the air above?  Do some of them contain particulate matter that are pulled downward by gravity?  Who knows?  (Well, I don't know -- someone does.)
As I finished making one of my clients his lunch today, his roommate Myke blew in from grocery shopping, fresh and wet, with his arms full of bags. 
"It's a very wet day out there," I observed.
"Sure is," he replied, setting his bags down.  "And I love it.  I love the rain in all shapes and sizes."
"Me, too," I said.  "That's why I live in Portland!"
"Yup," he said.  And we smiled at one another.