Rain is Awesome

As if some switch has been flipped, it has begun to rain in Oregon again. We had a dry summer with record-breaking wildfires all over the state--including one started by some punk teenagers that roasted some of my favorite places to hike, thank you very much. Yesterday in particular, we had torrential downpours that turned the streets into makeshift streams. The skies were dark and I knew I was back home where I belonged.

I am a Northwesterner.

One thought that occurred to me as I was staring out at a deluge of precipitation was how much weight the water represented. If you added up all the rain from that one downpour, why, the weight must be terrific! How does a cloud carry it all? How do planes fly through them? It's pretty cool when you think about it.

Thank goodness for umbrellas, houses, covered areas so kids can run jog-a-thons, and cars so we can pick up mom and kids as they walk home from school in the rain. There are few things better than waking up in the morning and not having to go to work, and being able to listen to the rain drum on the roof. I suppose that's a little selfish, and I feel for the construction workers and anyone else that has to work out in the rain. If it's any consolation, when it rains like this, my workplace smells a little weird. For some reason, processing wet trash has a distinctive odor. You can always tell.