rain. it skews my thought processes...

so today . . . it rained. thank goodness.

when i left for school this morning, i knew rain was in the forecast. i had checked my weather app which shows the weather prediction hour by hour, and it said there was a 50 percent chance of rain during recess today. i thought those were pretty good odds, so i wore my lightweight raincoat because i knew i had to do a few errands after school and my raincoat would keep me dry. but it isn't very warm. which is usually fine, since our daytime temperatures rarely dip below 60 degrees, and i was already wearing a sweater and a scarf.

i left the house, got into my car in the garage, and went to school. i parked in my usual parking space, got out of the car, and was hit by a freezing cold wind. (this is the problem with keeping your car in the garage--you don't have to actually feel the weather until you get where you are going.) i immediately knew i was in trouble... there were hardly any clouds in the sky, probably because of the wind. rain did not look imminent. in fact, rain didn't even really look like a possibility. i was suddenly wishing i had worn my warm coat instead of my waterproof one.

i spent the morning praying for rain by recess...

fifteen minutes before recess i went to check the weather. it was raining! well, sort of... the ground was a little damp. there were clouds in the sky. if it wasn't exactly raining, it was sure looking like it was thinking about it... that was good enough for me. this is southern california after all.

we spent recess in our warm, dry classroom :) sometimes it is good to be the adult.

after school it was still threatening to rain. and it was still cold. at least i had on my warm boots, because i had to go pick up my new prescription. fortunately for me, my pharmacy is in the same building as my eye doctor. i have an eye appointment early thursday morning, but i will have to rush to work afterwards, which won't leave me much time to look at new glasses. so while waiting for my prescription to be ready, i ventured to the second floor and the optometrist's office.

there were a lot of frames from which to choose. a lot. and yet, i found that the frames i kept choosing looked a lot like the ones i already have, which i LOVE, which is maybe why i kept choosing similar frames! but i currently only have one pair of glasses, and i can't be without them for two weeks while kaiser sends them out to have new lenses put in. so i need a second pair.

i walked up and down the wall of frames more than once. i found a few frames i liked, but of course they were all over $300 just for the frames! and my lenses are not going to be inexpensive--that's what happens when your eyes get to be of a certain age. and then i heard the woman next to me mumbling. she was not happy. she was there to have her new glasses replaced, but she was there alone with no one to give an opinion. she was afraid she was going to end up with another pair of glasses that didn't work for her. pretty soon she turned to me and said, "what do you think of these?"

please don't ask me that! please, please, PLEASE don't ask me that! i mean, i have opinions about fashion and accessories, but my bubble tends to be a bit off level. i like things that are a little different, quirky, unexpected. my taste is not for everyone. but how do i explain this to a perfect stranger in the next 30 seconds. so i took the easy way out. "i think they look nice," i said.

let this be a lesson to you. don't ask a stranger what they think. they don't know you well enough to say, "that looks hideous! what were you thinking??" obviously she thought they looked pretty good or she would have already rejected them. should i be the one to tell her they weren't that great? i don't think so!

"ok," she said, "what about these?" and she put on another pair. "those are nice, too," i said. when she asked me about a third pair, i finally said, "look, i like glasses with a bold frame. i do not like half frames, skinny metal frames, or frameless frames. i want my glasses to say 'look, i have eyes!' so that affects my opinions. if you like something that blends in with your face, i am the wrong person to be asking!" and then she said, "i like your glasses!"

oh sheesh. now i had to help her. so we compared several frames, and i told her what i thought. and she chose the frames i liked the best. i hope she is happy with them...

and then i realized SHE CHOSE THE FRAMES I LIKED THE BEST!! now what was i going to choose?!?! because i'm pretty sure kaiser doesn't keep several pairs of that particular gucci frame in the back room! and my appointment is on thursday! what is wrong with me?? why did i have to go all gaga when she put that frame on?? why didn't i push her toward the guess frame so she would leave my gucci frame alone?!?!?! now what am i going to do????

maybe i am too nice...

let this be a lesson to me. don't talk to strangers. even ones who need help. i teach tiny children that lesson every year--you would think i would know it! now my only hope is that they will get some newer, even better frames in before i have to make a decision...

...yes, by thursday.

our dogs + rain = you don't want to know...

so today . . . it rained again.

i promised myself i was not going to blog about the rain today. i know some of you get as tired of my weather blogs as you do of my food blogs. but here are the cold, hard facts, people: food and the weather pretty much rule my days. i go to bed thinking about what the weather will be like the next day and deciding what to wear. because if i have to make clothing decisions at 7:00 in the morning, it is not going to be pretty--or i am going to be late. and even after i get dressed, i have to decide if i should wear a coat... or a sweater... or wonder if a scarf around my neck would keep me warm enough... because it may start out cool, but by 11:30 when we are out on the playground it might be hot! but by the time i leave to come home, it might be cool again. or really hot!! you just never know...

and the awful truth is, i think about food all day. what will i eat for breakfast? do i have time to run by mcdonald's and get cinnamon melts? or should i be good and just eat my usual hard boiled egg. will the lunch at school be something delicious like macaroni and cheese? or will it be that noodle-y stuff... or will i even eat at school?!? i could go to jack in the box... or 7-11 for a salad and a brownie... or now that i have an hour for lunch, i could even go home... of course then i would have to actually make something to eat, which would reduce my actual eating time, so maybe it is better to go to jack in the box instead. or 7-11...

and what about dinner?

you see, no matter what else happens during the day, food and the weather are always on my mind. and today it rained. real rain, not that sissy socal stuff. i even had to wear a coat. with a hood. and the only coat i have with a hood is a long, down-filled puffy coat with fur around the hood. i bought it a few years ago just before we headed to oregon for christmas, because they were expecting a big snowstorm. so yes, considering we were just having rain today, it was maybe overkill... but i don't like to carry an umbrella. or get wet. so i left the house looking like nanook of the north... in southern california... in october...

and then i spent the next hour telling parents to take the tiny, colorful umbrellas that they let their children bring to school, home with them. because what am i going to do with 15 drippy hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer umbrellas in my classroom all day?!?!? i've got my hands full with tiny hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer coats and boots! WET coats and boots...

rollie worked at home today, so once again i braved the rain to meet him for lunch. he said mia had spent the morning sitting on the floor next to his chair with her front paw on his leg. this is her signal for "can i please sit in your lap? please?? please?????" mia is not really a lap dog--she is all pointy elbows and paws. but she tries. especially if it is raining, because mia does not like the rain. at all. milo, on the other hand, had come in soaking wet... i saw this as real progress, because when milo first came to live with us, he would not go out in the rain unless i carried him out and stood over him with an umbrella. thank goodness it only rains two or three times a year here...

by the time i left school to come home for the day, it had pretty much stopped raining. as soon as i walked into the house, rollie said, "did you see the garage door??" well, yes, i thought, i had to open it to get my car into the garage. but i hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary... so when he took me back out to the garage to show me what he was talking about, it was clear that i was looking at the wrong garage door.
"when i got home from lunch today, mia was soaking wet!" he said. "she was so wet i had to dry her off with a towel. and then i saw this!" yes, our precious pooch had frantically clawed her way clear through the door!

in all fairness, this door was damaged when we moved into the house. we aren't really sure what happened here before we moved in, but there were some violence issues, and the side door into the garage was one of the casualties. it had been repaired with wood putty, i think, and our painters did a great job of trying to make it look good, but it was still damaged. we knew we were going to have to replace it, we just hadn't done it yet.

i think we will be doing it soon.

because for some strange reason, when rollie left to meet me for lunch today, mia went outside. in the rain of which she is so deathly afraid. and apparently she tried to get back into the house... through the side garage door. i don't know why she would do that! she can go in and out of the house whenever she wants to--we had a doggie door specially constructed to fit next to the french doors so she and milo could go in and out even when we aren't home. but clearly something spooked her. she must have really panicked! she was only home alone for an hour...

as we were sitting in the family room talking about it, i happened to glance out the french doors, and this is what i saw...
i'm pretty sure milo is the culprit in this situation. again, i don't understand it. our patio overhang covers about three feet of grass next to the patio. and he had clearly been out in the rain earlier in the day! i guess i should appreciate that he got as close to the grass as he could without actually going on the grass...but come on!!

this was a rough day for our pups. they are california dogs. they don't do rain.

but thankfully we've now had our two days of precipitation for the fall. sunshine is back in the forecast for tomorrow... right where it belongs!

maybe tomorrow's blog won't be about the weather...

a rainy day blog...

so today . . . it rained.

i know it rained, because when i pulled out of the 7-11 parking lot this morning, my tires skidded on the wet pavement.

you know that song, "it never rains in california..." well, it is almost true. almost. but not today. today it rained.

rain was in the forecast for tomorrow, but not for today. so when i looked out the kitchen window this morning and noticed that the ground was wet, i thought, "oh wow, it must be getting cooler. the water from the sprinkler hasn't evaporated yet..."

(this is how i know i am turning into a california person. an oregon person wouldn't even notice that the ground was wet! oregon's ground is wet most of the time in the fall! but rain doesn't even enter the mind of a california person--we immediately think "sprinklers!")

i finished gathering up my stuff and went out to the car. i opened the garage door and noticed the driveway was wet too. and getting wetter by the second. and then i saw it. rain.

to be clear, it was california rain--there was water in the air, but it was still safe to wear suede boots. i didn't know how long it was going to stay that way though, so we took the preventative measure of putting electrical tape on those two small cracks that have developed in the roof of my car. thankfully rollie was working from home today and could help me, because since we moved, i'm not sure i could find the electrical tape. i know it is in the garage (which is rollie's territory,) and so i know it has a specific place (like all of rollie's stuff.) i just don't know where that specific place is...

it took a little time to complete the rainproofing of my roof. thankfully i had the time. i have learned that if i set my alarm a little bit earlier and only hit the snooze button once, i have time to make a quick stop at 7-11 and still make it to work on time...

yes, i said on time!! i haven't been late to work once this year! of course, i've only worked seven days, but i think i have turned over a new leaf. apparently being docked 15 minutes of pay isn't enough to get me out of bed earlier, but the promise of a gigantic diet lemon cokesi is! of course, i wish i could survive the day without that infusion of a fizzy, caffeinated drink, but i've been so tired since i went back to work that i've NEEDED it. of course, maybe if i slept a few more minutes in the morning instead of going to 7-11, i wouldn't need it...

but i digress.

i walked in and out of 7-11 without the aid of an umbrella (you see, i am still an oregon person at heart,) but again, to be fair, i did get the parking space right in front of the door. my brain was still not really registering the fact that it was RAINING! how could it be raining?!?! just yesterday i was wearing tank tops and flip flops. i had acquiesced to the cooler temperatures today by donning boots and a sweater, but still... and then my tires squealed out of the 7-11 parking lot...

i was not going terribly fast. however, there were cars approaching me, and they were going terribly fast. so when i hit the gas and felt my tires spin but did not feel my car move, i knew it must be raining. i should have registered "rain" when i had to turn on my lights or use my windshield wipers, but it was early and i was sort of on autopilot (remember, i only hit the snooze button once!) my tires finally gained traction and propelled me toward the first of four stop lights that have become my arch nemeses...

i hate those four stop lights. really. if i could rat them out for their inconsistent and inconsiderate behavior and send them off to traffic light jail, i would. they are never green. never. i always have to wait. and sometimes i have to wait through two or even three rotations at the left turn light. this morning i had time to tweet and post to facebook about my squealing tires before i finally got through that light! (i'm pretty sure it isn't breaking the law to tweet while you are just sitting still at a stupid red left turn light. i think tweeting while sitting at a red light might be the only thing between certain motorists--who shall remain nameless--and road rage...)

i got to school with my diet lemon cokesi (which is no small task, considering that the cup is so big it won't fit in any of my cup holders, so i have to put it in the passenger seat and prop it up with my handbag. which i hate to do, because my handbag is cloth and i'm always afraid that when i turn a corner, my soda will spill on it. or worse yet, completely tip over and spill everywhere! that happened once. it was awful. so to try to prevent that, i put my right hand on the cup to steady it when i go around corners. which wouldn't be a big deal, except my car has a manual transmission which requires me to use that same right hand to shift. it's a good thing i am coordinated...) i knew it was going to be a long day. tonight was open house and i wasn't quite ready. it was also art day. art day on the same day as open house!! what was i thinking?!?!? AND since it was raining, we were going to be stuck in the classroom for recess, which meant energetic kids with nowhere to expend that energy...

i slurped my diet lemon cokesi and hoped for the best...

we got through the morning without any major catastrophes. and then this afternoon i went into the classroom next door to help a teacher who had a screaming, crying three year old who would. not. stop. so i was talking quietly to the child and patting him on the back and just generally trying to get him to calm down and be quiet. because sometimes crying is contagious--especially if you are three and were just awakened from a nap that was not quite long enough! he got a little quieter, but he wouldn't stop crying! and i needed to go back to my own class to finish getting ready for open house! but since i had come in to help, i didn't feel like i could just leave without accomplishing my goal of turning a wailing three year old into a smiling one... so i started talking to the other three year olds sitting at his table having their snack. we were talking about what they were eating, when one precious dumpling looked right at me and said, "i eat boogers!"

okaaayyy... not really information that i wanted to know, but it got the attention of the screaming child, who momentarily stopped screaming to see what was going to happen next...

here's what happened next. "did you see the rain this morning?" i asked.

yep, i deflected and redirected. and it worked. this time. because to a southern california three year old, rain is a BIG deal! he might remember the afternoon it rained last spring, but odds are he doesn't really remember it raining before today. oh, he's heard people talk about it, like they talk about snow and colored leaves falling in october and wide open spaces, but he has had very little, if any, experience with it.

and so, we talked about rain. and the crying child stopped. and the booger-eating child ate his crackers instead. and i managed to escape back to the relative calm of my own classroom...

...just in time for a birthday party. a birthday party in a classroom full of kids who have been inside all day because of the rain. i looked at the clock, breathed a sigh of relief, left my class in the capable hands of others, and headed out into the rain...

...only to be pleasantly surprised by dry ground and sunshine.

yep, it never rains in california... at least not for long :-)

the promise of sunshine :)

so today . . . it rained. again.

i know you are probably getting tired of hearing me whine about the rain, especially if you live someplace where you are buried by snow! but seriously, enough is enough...

the ground is waterlogged. my car is a mess. i am forced to wear my big puffy coat (because it has a hood.) the parking lot at school is one big puddle. we can't go outside to play at recess. i can't walk the dogs (ok, ok, i know i haven't been walking them lately anyway, but that was one of my new year's resolutions and it is just not happening in the rain!) the pups don't even want to go out! all this rain is just not normal!

but there is good news! i just checked the weather on my phone, and it looks like things are clearing up. no more rain is in the forecast until january 17th! by my calculations, that means two weeks of sunshine!! the ground will dry out. the dogs will want to walk. the big puffy coat can go back into the hall closet. life will return to normal...

and so, to celebrate the promise of sunshine, i am thinking that perhaps tomorrow i should take my car to the car wash. with the top down. just because i can :)

it's trying to get me again!!

so today . . . it is raining and i am getting sick again.

it is not a good day. well, maybe that isn't completely true--i do have a fire, and a warm puppy curled up next to me.

i can't do anything about the rain. i guess we are just going to have some. but the sickness . . . if sick kids would just stay home! on monday i noticed that almost all my students were suddenly coughing again. i've tried to stay out of the "line of fire," and i am using hand sanitizer almost constantly. and yet i can feel it coming on . . .

i wrote an email to one of my staff of doctors to see what i should do. i should hear back from her soon, although with the weekend, it may take until monday. i guess until then i will just take the mega-strength sudafed she gave me last time and keep rinsing those sinuses . . .

and since it is raining, maybe i should just spend the weekend on the couch, in front of the fire, with my book and my blanket and my warm puppies.

if this keeps up, i might have to get a snuggie . . .

storm watch. 2010. day 4

so today . . . i didn't see much rain. that doesn't mean it wasn't raining--i just missed it.

i had opportunities, my timing was just off. it was dry on my way to work--well, when i say dry, i mean it wasn't currently raining. although, the streets were wet. i think it must have rained in the night, but once i am asleep it takes a LOT to wake me up. rollie can wake up and turn on talk radio--i am oblivious. diandra can come home late and set the house alarm--i don't hear it. milo can walk across my chest to get to rollie--ok, i am kind of aware of his 16 pound body pretending like i am the ground beneath his feet, but i don't really wake up. so rain at night? doesn't faze me.

about 11:00 i started thinking about lunch. and i thought i might like a soda with my lunch today. and i thought i might like to go get it without risking drowning, so timing was going to be important. the only problem was, i had just two times from which to choose--my 15 minute break at 11:45 or my lunch half hour at 1:00. and since the rain has not been following the schedule i have laid out for it the last couple of days, i wasn't sure which would be the better choice.

and then i remembered--accuweather!

accuweather is an app that rollie showed me early this week. i had downloaded it to my phone, but hadn't used it yet. so i tapped my fingers on the screen of my cool new phone, and a radar picture popped up. cerritos was marked on the map with an X, which was very helpful as i could see where the rain was. but it kept moving! at first the worst of it was headed toward san diego, and i thought a soda might be in my future . . . but then when i looked half an hour later, it had moved back up into our area.

clearly i needed more information. and guess what? accuweather has LOTS of information. in addition to the real time radar map, it also shows the current temperature, what direction the wind is blowing and how hard, and also the humidity. then it takes those factors into consideration to give a "real feel" temperature. it has a daily forecast for the next two weeks, AND it also lists the weather conditions for each hour of the day.

that is the feature that i consulted in making my decision about a soda run. according to accuweather, it was going to be raining in the 11:00 and 12:00 hours. but at 1:00, it just showed a cloud with lightning! i decided that was my best bet. i was so excited about this information, that i texted rollie about my decision. his reply? "i can see how you would rather die from a lightning strike than drown--quicker. :) btw, i think that symbol means lightning storms, i.e. harder rain."

shoot! i hadn't thought of that. but he was probably right, as lightning is usually accompanied by rain in the winter time. so i decided to stay in where it was warm and just drink tea at lunch. who knew accuweather could also assist in encouraging healthy eating?

i noticed there was one button i hadn't yet pushed. it was on the lower right hand corner of the screen and was marked with three stars. i had ignored it for quite a while, because i just figured it was some kind of rating scale. but as i continued to play with the app, my curiosity got the better of me, and i pushed it.

and started laughing.

onto my screen popped a fairly extensive list of activities that were rated according to the weather conditions. for instance, today the rating for barbequing, beach going, biking, golf, hiking, kite flying, lawn mowing, outdoor concerts, stargazing, tennis, and travel was poor. it's a good thing i had an app to tell me that. otherwise i might just have decided to get out my kite after school . . . it was also poor for the flu and arthritis. however, it was fair for asthma, colds, and sinus. good to know, considering my doctor thinks i suffer from two out of three of those conditions. could the weather today be rated excellent for anything, you ask? oh yes it could--grass growing, migraines, mosquitoes (i am assuming that means excellent because there aren't any!) and uv exposure! no sunscreen needed today!!

i am in love with this app. i showed it to ms. martha, and she immediately downloaded it onto her iphone. i know that it is entertaining today because we are actually having some weather. when this storm system passes and we go back to living in the land of eternal sunshine, it isn't going to be nearly as interesting.

and yet, i am glad to know that i can always look to accuweather to see if i should get out the mosquito repellant . . .

***note to mom--download this app if you do not already have it. i think you will love it too :)

storm watch. 2010. day 3.

so today . . . at 3:45 p.m. the rain ceased to be entertaining.

the day once again started out dry. i even checked with rollie about the forecast, because while my phone said it would only get up to 58 degrees today, it said nothing about rain. he assured me that the rain was coming . . .

i've come to hate the look of a cloudy, gray sky. and my closet full of dry weather clothes.

when i am at school, i am oblivious to the weather. my classroom is in the basement with narrow windows at ceiling height, and all we can see is the top of the building next door. we have heat and air conditioning and nice bright lights, so our temperature and visibility are unaffected by the weather. until we go up to the gym for recess, we have no idea of what is going on outside. which usually doesn't matter, because usually the sun is shining! but today when we went upstairs for playtime in the gym, i noticed that although the sky was cloudy and gray, there was still no rain.

so on my 15 minute break, i made an uneventful (this time) dash to 7-11 for emergency supplies (you know what i am talking about!) i noticed that one part of the sky was significantly darker than the rest. oh good, i thought to myself, maybe the storm is going past us today. yeah, well, i believed that little fairy tale until i realized that the dark part of the sky was to the west of us, and that crazy jet stream is traveling east.

now that i had supplies, i was able to stay inside during my lunch break. my plan had been a nice lunch with my book at chick-fil-a, since i had a whole hour today. but after seeing that sky, i could just imagine myself having to dash back to my car in the flooded parking lot with pouring rain drenching me and then spending the rest of the afternoon cold and wet. no thank you!

i fully expected the rain to be over by the time i left for home. that is what happened on monday. that is what happened yesterday. and our weather is nothing if not predictable. in fact, we rarely see the rain, because it almost always rains at night here. i don't know why, it just does . . .

so i put on my coat, picked up my handbag and computer bag and umbrella, and headed for the door. i could see that it was raining, so i adjusted my bags so that they were both on my shoulder and would be protected under the umbrella. i put my hood up. (don't ask why, i have no idea. i had an umbrella, but it just seemed like the thing to do.) i pushed open the door and started up the outside stairs. when i got to the top of the stairs, i stopped. i couldn't believe my eyes. the wind was blowing, and rain was coming down in sheets! you could see walls of it moving across the parking lot. this was more rain than i had seen since the day it rained something like 15 inches in one day when we lived at the coast. and that was ten years ago!!

i stood there for a few minutes trying to decide what to do. then i realized that even though i was kind of protected by the building, i was still getting wet! ok, make a dash for it, i thought. so i did--over the flooded grass and through the really flooded parking lot. i decided against opening the trunk in favor of trying to stuff my bags into the car, over the driver's seat, and into the passenger seat--yeah, that is why i usually use the trunk! i opened the door ready to fling my bags in . . . and discovered a major design flaw with my perfect little roadster--when sheets of rain are blowing across the roof and you open the door, the water falls in a stream straight down into the driver's seat! uh huh . . .

i didn't know what to do. i just stood there and watched my bucket seat fill up with rain water. should i put my bags in? but i would have to put them in the wet driver's seat first before i could bend down and lift them over the emergency brake into the other seat. and i couldn't bend down, because i was holding my umbrella (for all the good THAT was doing) and it was stuck between the roof of the car and the car door. should i just get in and try to pull them in after me? sit in that puddle?!?!?! are you kidding me?!?! maybe i should just open the trunk after all. but then all my eco-friendly cloth shopping bags would get wet. oh, and btw, THE PUDDLE IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT WAS NOT GETTING ANY SMALLER! i needed to do something!!

so i slammed the door closed and ran back into the school building.

you might think this was counterproductive. after all, i was already at the car. i was already about as wet as i could get. and now i had just doubled the amount of times i was going to have to slosh across the flooded parking lot. and maybe you would be right. but all i could think was my car is filling up with water and i don't know how to make it stop!!

so it was time to regroup. i needed a plan b. first things first--i walked down the hall and told ms. martha what had happened. i needed some sympathy and understanding, and i needed it fast! and then i started looking for the paper towels. because i figured that with all the rain around our school in the basement, real, dry, cotton towels were going to be scarce. but it was my lucky day (really?!?!?) because one was located.

ok, both bags on my shoulder, hood up, soda dumped (oh yes, i forgot to mention that i also had a soda in my hand before . . . ) umbrella in position, and towel in hand. i was ready to give it another try.

i went out the door and up the stairs. i peeked out into the parking lot. ok, good. the rain seemed to have slowed just a bit, and the wind had died down, so at least the rain was vertical now instead of horizontal. my feet and pants were already wet, so i took the shortest route to my car, even though i didn't have my water wings handy. i opened the car door, and without the wind blowing the water across my roof, the rain followed the little gutter around the door and down the side. yes!! ok, now just maneuver the bags in, and . . . then the wind blew, gustily!! the water coursed across the roof and down into the seat, and right INTO my handbag and computer bag!! i frantically tried to fling them across into the other seat, but the handles caught on the emergency brake. i couldn't reach far enough in to free them without letting go of the umbrella. and if i let go of the umbrella it would blow away. and, oh yeah, now there was more water in the driver's seat!! AAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!

i collapsed the umbrella, threw it onto the floor, put the towel in the driver's seat, threw myself into the car, and slammed the door shut! and the rain continued!

ok, well at least i was in the car. i was soaked, as was my seat, my carpet, and both the inside and outside of my bags, but we were all safe now. i hoped. all i had to do was get home and into the garage.

i started home, and knew i was in trouble when i saw the cars coming toward me on the road. great fountains of water were spraying high into the air. that is fine if you are driving an suv (rollie) or a jeep (diandra) but if you are driving a mazda mx-5 . . .

great! i survived the sinus rinsing only to drown on my way home from work . . .

i only live a mile from school, and i did not know if i was going to make it home. there was water across the road, but there was no where else to go. so i pretended my car was chitty chitty bang bang and plowed on through. i was afraid that if i stopped, my car might stall. (of course, i have no idea how a car works, so i don't know if that was a real danger or not.) i was trying to figure out how deep the water was, when i saw some high school kids running across the street. and the water was almost up to their knees! i turned into our neighborhood and couldn't see the road. it was completely flooded. the water was up over the sidewalks. i aimed my little car for the center of the road and tried to make it home without hydroplaning. i wasn't completely sure that my car was going to respond when i slowed down to turn into our driveway. but it did. and i coasted into lovely dryness.

i'm thinking maybe i should spend day 4 of storm watch 2010 in bed. warm and dry. with a book . . .

storm watch. 2010. day 2.

so today . . . it rained some more. really, really, really hard. and there was thunder and lightning too!

but it didn't start out that way. when i looked out the window this morning, it was mostly cloudy, but it was those smooth, high, white clouds with a tiny bit of blue peeking through. hmm. maybe that dumb jet stream had settled back into it's normal path and was sending the rain to washington or oregon where it belonged!

but just in case, a shoe decision had to be made. they were still predicting rain, which kind of affects footwear choices. i looked in my closet. bad news. my closet is filled with shoes--suede shoes, canvas shoes, open toe shoes, high heeled shoes--none of which were going to keep my feet toasty warm and dry. the best thing i could come up with were my black "ugg" boots. (notice the quotation marks--because real ugg boots are just slightly beyond my budget. but my boots are made from real suede, and i thought if cows can wear it in the rain . . . )

AND it was cold enough for the new sweater i got for christmas to finally see the light of day. it is big and soft and cozy, and i felt like i was wearing a snuggie all day--except i didn't trip over it!

when i got to school, i could see through my tiny little windows near the ceiling--yeah, my classroom is in a basement--that as the morning wore on, it was getting darker outside. and then, about noon, the rain began . . . gigantic drops were flung from the sky! the ground was soon flooded! the storm drains couldn't keep up! there was thunder. there was lightning. there was even a tornado warning!! i was thinking, where are we? kansas?!?!?!

since it is tuesday, rollie brought me lunch. he even braved the storm and went into an actual restaurant for food (well, panda express) instead of going through a drive-through. and then he parked in the closest parking space to the door of my school. he texted me, "wow. thunder. lightning. heavy rain. feels like oregon. be sure to wear something on your head when you come." thank goodness i had the sense to wear my big, puffy coat with the hood--even though (gasp!) it didn't match my outfit. i raced from the school to the car, which probably took all of 10 seconds, and i was drenched! we sat in the car munching our orange chicken and watching everyone else slosh through the flood to get to their cars. we listened to the rain pound the roof, and watched for lightning. and then, we noticed that we couldn't hear the rain on the roof anymore, even though it was still raining. and then it stopped.

the clouds dissipated, the puddles drained, and the sun fought to shine. all in the half hour i call my lunch time . . .

i walked back into the school without my coat, collected my students and finished out the afternoon.

at the end of my day, when i took my kids over to the other building for chinese and spanish classes, i saw joshua--remember? from last year? and he said to me, "i love the rain." so we talked about the rain for a few minutes. and then i said, "do you know who does not like the rain? milo!" and i told him the story about how yesterday i had to go out into the backyard with my umbrella and stand out there with milo until he would finally poop. and how milo didn't want to be out there in the rain, but i made him stay out there, because i knew he had to go to the bathroom.

joshua just looked at me for a minute. and then he said, "don't you have a toilet in your house?"

i guess he had forgotten that milo is a dog . . .

storm watch. 2010. day 1.

*disclaimer* we are supposed to have very wet weather for the next two weeks. and having spent a large portion of my life in the pacific northwest, i find a lot of humor in this situation. however, the reality is that many people whose homes were spared during fire season, will now lose them due to mudslides. this is not funny at all. so when i mock the socal response to rain, i am speaking of my little corner of the world, where the ground is flat and covered in concrete--NOT the areas where people are standing in the pouring rain, filling bags with sand, and stacking them as their only hope to save their homes . . .

so today . . . it rained. i knew it was coming, so i was prepared. well, partly--my gas tank was full--which meant i wouldn't have to battle the elements to keep my car on the road. and i was finally going to get to wear my warm sweater . . .

i had to go to work today, even though it was a holiday. rollie and diandra both had the day off, so i was not totally thrilled to be leaving the house before 8:00 this morning. but by 9:00 we only had 7 children between the three pre-k/kindergarten classes. hmmm, i thought. perhaps someone was going to get to go home early. and maybe that someone could be me!

by 10:30 more children had arrived--i guess the rain didn't keep them all home, it just slowed them down--but we were still well under our teacher/student ratio. hope gleamed brightly in my "oh, i want to go home early" brain.

and then there was chocolate cake!! yes, even on this cold and rainy day there was a birthday. and the best part is, it wasn't one of my students!

(i hate birthdays in my classroom, but that is a topic for another day . . . )

AND there was macaroni and cheese for lunch! with peas!! could there be a better lunch on a rainy day?!?! i think not! but as it turned out, i missed out on lunch . . . BECAUSE I GOT TO GO HOME EARLY! yes, yes, yes!!

it was like a snow day (except i had to get up and to go work for four hours.) rollie was home too, so we ate our lunch and watched the rain pour! we watched a movie. i stood in the rain in the backyard for several minutes (while rollie laughed from inside) until milo finally did his doggie business--he did NOT want to go outside! (i was going to have rollie take a picture for the blog, but he would have had to open the patio door, and then milo would have raced back into the house, mission UNaccomplished. so this photo will have to do, to prove that i am not making all this weather stuff up . . . ) and then the rain slowed down and finally stopped.

that changed my plan for the afternoon. my plan for my bonus afternoon off was to take a nap. but after experiencing the pouring, blowing rain today, i decided that maybe i should go out and get supplies during the eye of the storm. so i refilled our water jugs, and then went to costco.

apparently everybody else had the same idea that i had, because the costco parking lot was packed! i filled my cart with food and then stood in the shortest check-out line--which of course was also the slowest check-out line.

while i was standing in line, i noticed the people around me. and their shoes. i was wearing my snow boots--not the most fashionable choice, but i did not want to have wet, cold feet. several other people had made similar decisions. usually i am surrounded by fancy footwear, but not today. there were still those holding on to style whose boots had high heels, but i feared for their safety on the wet, slippery floors and sidewalks. and then there were the young men. they were not giving up their sneakers, but you know how they wear their pants! so they were all walking around with jeans that were wet clear up to the knee, but hey! they looked cool, i guess . . .

so now we have food and water and full tanks of gas. i think we are well prepared for whatever weather comes our way. which is good, because it sounds like today was just the tip of the iceberg. we have a whole series of storms just waiting to pummel us! it is going to get messy, people . . .

wait! is this winter?

so today . . . it is raining.

not just the mist that usually sends southern californians into a frenzy, but real, steady, noisy oregon-like rain. in fact, last night rollie heard on the news that they are predicting 18-24 INCHES of rainfall before the week is over! that is more rain that we usually get in a year!!

this rain is interfering with life, the way i live it. i couldn't put the top down on my car when i went to church this morning. i had to wear a real coat--one that is constructed for warmth instead of fashion--not suede or cloth or a sweater. i had to drag an umbrella around with me. (however, in deference to my oregon roots, i didn't open it for the "california rain." but when the oregon rain showed up, i was glad i had it!) i had to drive more slowly. but worst of all, when we went out to eat dinner, we had to eat inside the restaurant rather than at one of the outdoor tables.

so prepare yourselves--i foresee rainy blogs this week . . .