Seven Minute Summer Shower
Tag: Rain
Grey Friday
A Little Fall Of Rain
I had to toss my son’s long, pointed umbrella last night, as it finally gave up the ghost. The white plastic pieces on the shaft had gone brittle and cracked. It must have been 20 years old, and it took up several feet of space, not having been invented during the collapsible, compact years.
They mustn’t make them like that anymore, as our newer, smaller umbrella ribs can’t seem to last longer than a set of tires, and they certainly snap in a solid wind.
However, we live in Texas, where it rains as many fingers as I have per year. It’s enough to make us want to run out and dance in it–and we have! But never to this extent.
Puddle Jumping
And where is a man to lay down his cape, so that the women may pass? Indeed, this puddle is much too deep for that, and too wide.
Here in Central Texas, we have received more spring rain than I can ever remember, and still more threatens through Saturday, though we pray it ends today. There’s only so much dirty puddle water one can tolerate sloshing about in her high heels.
Rice University Flooded
Houston’s prestigious Rice University has been hit hard by Harvey. Though the school will officially remain closed through Wednesday, one wonders how students will even be able to attend class at all.
Though nothing of this proportion has ever been witnessed in Houston, my issue of the 1975 Rice yearbook shows students out and about in lesser downpours. Houston, in my own experience, can flood at the drop of a dime.
I bet none of these students could ever have imagined what happened this past weekend at their alma mater. Please pray for Houston.
Rain On The Grapevine
After years of drought, devastating fires, and sad, dried-up rivers, causing waterfront restaurants and party barges to fold–and with it, an entire lake culture–Texas is finally getting some precip from that ornery sky. Flash flooding? I’ll take it.
Go ahead and rain on that new trampoline.
Pour down on the rosemary.
Pitter-patter on the deck.
Send the blackhawks to retrieve the men, clinging to the tops of their trucks. I’ll take it. Let the weathermen repeat, “Turn around, don’t drown” until the cows come home. At least the cows will have some grass this year. And maybe, just maybe, the cattle won’t starve, and the price of beef won’t double like it did last year. Hallelujah, it’s raining.
It’s Raining Grammar On National Grammar Day
We’re not used to witnessing actual precipitation in central Texas, but it appears that today’s brief-lived 72 degrees, which is dropping to 31 as I type, has brought with it some rain. They hardly look like raindrops, though. More like dashes and hyphens.
Odd, isn’t it?
It almost looks like staples.
Dry As A Dead Dingo’s Donger
Last night’s view near twilight was a sight to behold. I could hear Eddie Rabbit rise from the dead, singing, “Well, I love a rainy night, it’s such a beautiful sight…” Of course, folks around here have learned not to get our hopes up. We’ve been (literally) burned too many times to count, hopeful at the sight of darkening clouds and ominous thunder, only to watch it pass us by. While Al Roker chats gloats about rainstorms across the country, central Texas is essentially Penny from The Rescuers, constantly passed over by would-be adoptive parents. For years.
We’ve been in drought conditions for so long, it’s nearly time for Penny’s quinceañera (were she Hispanic, which would technically make her Centavo, and that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it).
But it DID rain last night, and I even went out and danced in it, prompted by fellow blogger, Liz, if only for a few seconds. P.S. rain is cold.
So what if the lightning and thunder kept me up all night long? I’ll sacrifice my slumber for the good of our state.
Award-winning weatherman Jim Spencer keeps us abreast of local changes on his “First Warning Weather,” deciphering the Doppler Weather Radar and making predictions, but (to quote the Aussies), it’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.
All of our lakes are hitting record lows. The Lake Travis restaurants like The Oasis and Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s, so popular for water fun and frolic in the 1990s, now overlook a low-lying lake covered with dune-like islands. When I visited Volente Beach on Lake Travis fourteen years ago, I could see the dry islands popping up even then.
But now it’s much, much worse.
At this point, I don’t know how we’ll ever recoup enough water to get things where they need to be. Our water bills are always in the hundreds each month; that’s par for the course to live in this area. Cattle are dropping dead right and left, reservoirs are drying up. But we won’t give up hope.
Now Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower.” 1 Kings 18:41
More rain may be just around the bend.
I Don't Get It 