Nota Bene: I composed this blog in my head this morning while I was riding my bike in the rain. It has since cleared up and the sun is shining, but I’m going to post it anyway. Btw: How to stop the rain? Bring an umbrella to work.
The sun did not shine
It was too wet to play
Nothing to do but stay inside
All that cold, cold, wet day
Those of us who settle in the northern latitudes do so in part because we dislike the hot, humid, wet weather associated with the tropics, and those long rainy seasons where it pours every day for six months and moss grows on your leather boots.
I remember the night of the first aguacero that announced the onset of the rainy season my first year in Guatemala. It came in the middle of the night, and the force of the rain beating on the roof drove the termites who nested there out into my bedroom. They had wings but apparently had not learned to use them yet as they just crawled around on the floor all night. Sometime towards morning, a procession of giant ants (the Guatemalans call them zompopes and fry them in oil and eat them)invaded my adobe shack and devoured the termites. In the morning, the only trace that remained were their gossamer wings. As I tried to sweep them up, they billowed into a head high cloud, turning over and over in slow motion, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
A “credible threat” of a terrorist attack hangs over New York and Washington as we approach 9/11. I told my son not to go downtown on Sunday or anywhere near the celebration. “Dad, it’s not a celebration, it’s an anniversary.”
On Sunday, I will related my 9/11/01 story. In New York and this town, everyone who was alive at the time has one.
Rupert