Noah's Container Ship

        It has rained and rained and rained and rained and rained for the past several days. I think I must have missed the divine revelation to march all of the Oakland animals (racoons, mice, cockroaches) onto a giant container ship and set sail for China or something, because gosh, it has just not. stopped. raining, and it makes my life kind of a hassle. Since I'm from Kansas, where it rains for 20 minutes every six months (except in September, when it rains for 30 minutes, or enough to completely flood the lower part of Bethel, whichever comes first), I feel like I should really appreciate rain, since it's such a transient phenomenon. In Kansas, when it rains, all the ditches flood, I can put on my black rubber farm boots and go stomping around in the mud, or put on my black and white polka dotted boots to go to class, everyone busts out their colorful umbrellas and makes a giant umbrella-snake when they go to supper (or maybe that's just my mod...), people dance in the rain, go sliding in the mud, and really just have a good time. In Kansas, rain is a source of much joy and happiness (unless it's during harvest), and few people complain about it.

         In California, it's a different story. It started raining in mid-November, and it hasn't stopped since then. It rains at least once a week for several hours. When they said “rainy season,” they weren't joking around. But half the time, it isn't even productive rain – it just drizzles pitifully for awhile, just enough to get a person uncomfortably wet if they spend any time outside, but not actually enough to be worthwhile. The other half of the time (like today) it pours for hours and hours, with cold gale-force winds (Ok, actually the wind advisory on weather.com says “30 mph gusts.” Haha, 30mph? Whatever. Noobs. We Kansans call that a light breeze). It is just miserable. Everything is impossible, especially travel, because a lot of people don't have a car, and have to hike a mile to the BART station or wait for 20 minutes for a bus. Everything is wet, nasty muddy gutter-street-water gets tracked into the house, the streets stink more than usual, and there are huge giant puddles everywhere because the gutters and drains are clogged with trash. Yuck. Also there's no lightning or thunder. WHAT'S THE POINT OF RAIN IF THERE'S NO LIGHTNING OR THUNDER?! I saw on my Google homepage that there was supposed to be a thunderstorm and I was like OMG YES PLEASE. But no. Nothing. In Kansas, rain rarely occurs without at least some sort of pitiful cloud-to-cloud lightning, if not a full-blown balls-to-the-wall electrical spectacular, but here? Nothing. Just constant drizzly rain. Blech.

           But on the bright side, IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK I WILL BE BACK IN CIVILIZATION!!!!!! Back in Kansas!!!!! So for all you people who want to see me in the next few weeks, I'll be in Clay Center from the 28^th through the 2^nd, and Newton from the 2^nd to the 6^th. GET YOUR PARTY HATS ON.