Weather

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. - John Updike

In Southern California, any drop of rain seems to bring with it a "Storm Watch" on the news.

I find it ridiculous.

But I think the reason why we get so worked up here over the slightest variation from the average 78.6 degrees and sunny is because it just doesn't happen very often. 

Today, Rose's teenage son, Paul, came out to tell us that it was HAILING. Hail? Wow! Rose and I stood there and watched through the window and even opened the door to admire this "weather" we were having. It lasted all of 5 minutes, and the hail was no bigger than BBs... but it was exciting! It was a change. 

We even heard extraordinarily loud thunder rumbling, two different times, for what seemed like a solid minute each time. 

There was one summer when Brenda came along on vacation with my parents and I. We were headed to Colorado, and we stayed in Flagstaff, Arizona overnight in our motorhome on the way out. There was the most amazing electrical storm that night, and Brenda and I just parked ourselves on my parents' bed in the back of the motorhome to watch it from the back window. We could actually see lightning, like the stuff from the pictures, not the California stuff that makes you wonder if someone just took a picture with their flash on. It's one of my favorite memories. We were going into our freshman year of high school, so it got pretty silly. ;) Waaaaa!

On a rainy day, the greens seem greener, and once the blue sky begins to peek through, it seems somehow bluer than ever. There is a richness to every texture that just can't be properly appreciated in glaring sunlight. Nor can that sunshine be appreciated to the fullest extent without rainy days like these to remind us that it's beautiful.