Monday--another day of randomness, Pt 1: everyone talks of the weather

There are so many things I have been wanting to write about and share, and posts I have even started writing but have not finished--in the meantime, a little more randomness.

It is technically Spring now, I guess, and as the sun tries to peek off and on through the grey skies today, I can kind of believe it.  Except we have had the strangest year--this past summer the coldest since 1973, so I heard, all fog and grey skies and DH making fires every morning to take off the chill.  Then this winter, with several spurts of gorgeous sunny upper 70's weather--us even getting our first short-sleeve sunburns of the year in January.  Now we are in March, and the rainy season is hitting us, finally.  So much rain in just two days that there are mudslides and power outages from downed trees, and roads washing out.  The seasons feel all flippety-flopped this year, and so it does not feel quite like Spring, and in fact the rain and sun battling behind the trees today seem to sum up the weather's overall inability to make up its mind.

Our power goes out frequently in the winter/spring, probably an average of 5 times a year, most during our rainy season.  I imagine some of you midwestern readers might have fewer outages, but yours might be for longer stretches, due to heavy snow and impassable roads for repair crews.  Ours are mainly caused by trees or big branches falling on the lines, brought down by the sheer weight of the water pouring down on them. 

(I had heard the expression "raining buckets" growing up in IL and IN, but never saw it happen until we moved to this part of Monterey Bay--the first year we moved into this house I remember it rained without ceasing for one whole week.  The rain varied from heavy mist to rain to cats and dogs to heavenly bathtubs upended but never actually stopped for seven. days.  That was the year one lane of highway 9 was washed out in the Santa Cruz mountains, and one lane of our road was washed out too, just a bit farther down from us so we were not affected by it.  Except for the time I was walking our dog Macey through the narrow part and some guy in his shiny cream BMW decided to run the stopsign at his end of the washout, thinking he could sqeeze past us at 30 mph.  Which felt really unsafe for myself and my dog.  Which caused me to yell at the driver, and flip him the bird.  I think the only time in my life I have done so.  Which was really unlike me, and of which I am not proud.  And yet which was not unnecessarily inappropriate under the circumstances.)

Anyway, this was the left side of our backyard one hour ago:

I tried to take a video so you could hear all the birds singing and the rushing of the creek down in the gulch, swollen from the recent rains, but the still image seemed to better convey the sunny tranquility.  Can you see some of my big, wild calla lillies?  (Double-click on the image to embiggen)

Now as I type this, an hour later, it is hailing.  My poor garden flowers--this is the third hail they have weathered this winter!

Just this morning I came across a blogger writing from Indiana, where I guess they recently had a 70 degree day followed by a light snow.  She commented that in Indiana they have the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes."  Really?  Weather when I lived in Indiana (4 winters/falls/springs, during college) was pretty consistent.  Really cold and lots of grey skies.  Some sun, but still cold. Snow that lingered beside roads all winter.  Much like Illinois, where I grew up.  Not much change within the course of a week, let alone from day to day.  No, when I hear that particular saying about the weather, I always think of Colorado, where we lived for the first 7 years of our marriage.  Now in CO, the weather does literally change in minutes, and hikers in the mountains should always be prepared for sudden lightning and rain storms.  Colorado--even farther back, when I was a little girl visiting the mountains--was the first place where I ever saw sunlight on falling rain.  I had never seen that in IL--when it is a rainy day, by golly, it is a rainy day, and the sunshine has the decency to wait its turn.

Another thing I witnessed in CO that I never would have imagined:  sitting at a large, busy intersection (Academy and Woodmen, for my Springs friends) on a day that was over all dark and rainy, but was not at that moment raining.  At all.  My windshield wipers were contentedly resting.  Except, I realized as I sat waiting for the light to turn, it was raining--on the other side of the intersection.  Pouring down rain.  I could actually see the line where the rain started, where the drops were smashing into the pavement, highlighted by the headlights of the cars facing me.  The light turned green, I drove forward, and there I was now in a rainy afternoon, wipers swishing furiously.

The rain is slowing now, and I can tell the sky is brightening.  Here in CA we do have the sunshine while it is raining phenomenon--and over the course of years living in different kinds of rain, I have realized that places that get the two together also get the most rainbows. I said the most, not the best--the best, most beautiful rainbows in my memory are the ones from childhood, huge things you could see for miles in the flatlands, and really imagine a physical end to.  Well, except for the one we saw just this past November, when I drove the kids up to visit great-grandma, 5 hours north:

It was a complete rainbow, and as the light shifted so did the particular beauty of the rainbow--now a double ringer from end to end, now colors so saturated, so vibrant the girls and I cried aloud in amazement and pleasure.  The spectacle lasted a good five minutes, presenting us with a full range of rainbow possibilties, most appreciated by the little audience of our mini-van pulled off on the highway's shoulder.  Pictures of course can never do a rainbow justice.

It is just drips outside, the birds are starting to venture forth.  The downpouring is over, for now.  Peace is spreading inside my house too--the children are quietly occupied with books or worksheets, or imprisoned in a crib.  Sweet respite--it too shall not last, so I'd better make the most of it. : )

Hope all of you are having a great start to your week!