Three days in a row of rain and gray. It might have been more gray than rain. Hard to say. About even, maybe? Sometimes you couldn’t distinguish between the two. And another day of it tomorrow. Thank you, subtropical storm system for promising four days in a row.
We didn’t even get the big winds.
At least we didn’t get the big winds.
I did get this, however. When it rains more than enough, the place where our driveway and the road meets will puddle. And, on Saturday, I watched it puddle, and disappear. Puddle. Disappear. By the third time I was ready to find my raincoat and see if I could understand how this was happening. The disappearance wasn’t bad, but there was no way it rained enough after the disappearances to mean puddles that big once again. This was, then, a hydrological, geological, sedimentological mystery.
Where was the rain going? And where were the puddles coming back from? I sat in my office window for a while watching this, trying to figure it out. Trying to decide if it would look crazy to go outside in the remnants of a tropical almost storm and just stare at a puddle. Couldn’t I just stare it from the window? Where I was warm and dry? I was staring at it. That was strange enough, right? I’d already inspected the basement twice, surely this is a strain of thoroughness beyond what is necess —
And then the wind blew.
Turns out that when the wind blows from the west south west at just the right velocity, the puddle takes on the same appearance of the chip and seal road from 35 yards away.
To be fair to myself, I was staring through double-paned windows.
Since the weather was the weather, I didn’t go anywhere. (We had a big fund raising bike ride planned for Saturday, but the weather canceled that. The right choice, I’d say.) That just means more time with the cats, and your favorite weekly feature. (Another correct choice.)
Phoebe discovered, or rediscovered, my backup clothes basket. She likes it very much.
What? You don’t have a backup clothes basket? Get with the times.
Anyway, here’s Phoebe again, on her ledge. And she’s not judging you and your clothes basket choices, not at all.
Poseidon … he’s definitely judging you. He needs more things to jump in and he thinks this is your fault. (Yes, they are related.)
Fortunately for you, Poseidon is a forgiving creature, and this box will do.
Inside the box was a gift. It was not for him, but rather for me, but the cat also won.
We went to an event for my godsister-in-law (just go with it) on Friday night. It was a backyard thing. Cookout. Nice people. A two-person band played. They had an amazing light show.
My lovely bride and her godsisters have been making this pyramid photo their whole lives. When that sunset started to showoff they figured they would, too.
I’m the second photographer, and that was in between moments, and one of several I took trying to not get in the way of the official zapper. But I like the authentic smiles.
My godsister-in-law’s husband (so my godbrother-in-law-in-law?) is friends with the band. I think they all went to school together. The Jollies, the two guys playing and singing have known each other their whole lives, I’m told, and they have a nice tight little sound. They played a Pete Yorn cover. It was so random it took a moment to register. But it was really quite good.
I ran into the two of them during a set break and complimented them for the choice. “Not everyone plays Pete Yorn covers,” I said, “but they should.” The guy did not miss a beat, that sorta response you know he’s waiting for because he’s pulled this out before and it works. He says, We play that for people like you.
And then he told me about another Yorn cover they sometimes do. Like it was a test, or something. But I, too, have “Musicforthemorningafter.” It’ll show up on the site eventually.
The Jollies, though, great light show.
And then it rained Saturday. And it rained Sunday. It was gray today. I had two meetings this afternoon and class this evening. We talked about Marshall McLuhan and Ibram Kendi. We talked about them in class, I mean. In the meetings we discussed fire codes and e-sports and documentaries.
On the way home I decided to try the drive with no map. This was my ninth time on this campus, after all, and the sixth time I’d driven myself. You have to try sometime. Why not try on just the third time you’ve done it at night.
Between here and there, there are two tricky intersections. As in poorly designed intersections. One sneaks up on you the first time, but you don’t forget it. Though I had a bit of difficulty judging the lanes in the dark. So I rounded a building, but I knew where I was. The second is a country intersection where five roads improbably run into one another. You could take two spurs and get back to the comforts of home, and I’m pretty sure the map has told me to take them both on different trips. I took the longer one this evening. The road didn’t run out where I expected — which is a big question mark since we’re talking cornfields and nondescript side roads at night — but I did find I was on a road I knew from my bike rides, meaning I knew a route back. (It was just around the corner from me.) And that’s fine, except everything happens at a slightly different speed in the car, of course. You must remember that that longer bit is now shorter, and you probably just weaved around that pothole when you were on two wheels. But, before long, hey, there’s another right turn you know and you’re pointed exactly in the right direction.
The only problem with learning the roads by bike is that I almost always take the long way when I’m pedaling.
