We've had a little rain

6.12 inches, in fact. Water was gushing like mad on a downward path to the river, but before I knew all that, I woke up Wednesday morning to its pounding on the tin roof and I had a feeling of utter contentment, which I haven't felt for a few weeks. And I had two memories, one recent, one ancient.

I remembered a similar rainstorm one weekend in Paradise. It was probably a weekend trip for someone's baptism and it was dark early, but not winter, because T and I opened her bedroom window to hear the rain fall. It was at the Rocky Lane house, with its Victorian (was it?) sensibilities and am I carzy or was there wallpaper on the gable ceilings in the girls' room? I know we found The Carpenters Greatest Hits tape and played "Rainy Days and Mondays" a few hundred times. Probably wore the tape out.

The other one that calmed me in my semi-sleep was just a few weeks ago in Oregon. On our trip back from Tahoe, Bean pulled onto a frontage road for me to take what could have been one of the greatest photos ever, but to get the right compsition I should have gone further into the field and I was already over the barbed wire fence on their private property and I could see a body watching from the screen door of the house trailer. So I chickened out and only got close enough for this:

Amazing subject, sad composition. If you click on it, you'll see why. I was really disappointed because we were discussing art at my house recently with Bean, and she was saying she doesn't really have the fire to think too hard about art for her walls, and if that photo had been awesome, she would have hung it up. I wanted it to be awesome for her, but instead when I got back to the van I saw, on the ground, a broken piece of 1x6 with nails sicking out of it - pokey side up, do I need to say? Her back tire was dramatically perched on the board between the 2 nails, and I thought we dodged the flat. But the next morning, we found that the front tire had already had its day with the nails and it was deflated - "soggy," according to Owie.

So Bean, Heff, and the boys and I took a trip to Costco for flat repair and lunch. It was totally packed with Eugenians (?) in their bad clothes but we found a table and had some pizza and hot dogs, churros and berry sundaes, and plenty of Coke and Owie's "picey stuff" Sprite.

We were there for about an hour, and I can't tell you exactly why it was so nice, but it was perfect in that way that unexpected family plans can be the most memorable. I remember it with the kinds of feelings that are peaceful, truly happy, free, and eternal in that way that there aren't words to adequately describe.