May 15, 2006
god waited patiently in the days of noah
5/15/06
We just got back from visiting Tessa's family in Cambridge, MA, and though it's always wonderful to hole up with them for a few days, I really do have to say something about the weather: UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE. We found ourselves in Boston in the middle of the worst continuous rainstorm with the most flooding since 1938, even beating out The Perfect Storm in buckets of water dumped. I know a blog about the weather has a half-life roughly that of unrefrigerated haddock, but you people should really experience this.
The worst part, as I'm sure you can imagine, is the dreariness. It'd been raining for five days before we got there on Saturday; it rained all weekend, and the forecast promised three more days of it. It's all anyone could talk about. We stopped at a pizza joint outside Harvard Square, and the old ladies and cops sounded like they wanted to kill themselves.
We keep telling ourselves to soak it in, because once we go back to Los Angeles, we won't see another raindrop for four months. The sun, especially for those of you living in the San Fernando Valley or in the flats of Hollywood, can have its own sort of oppression; when you see a big bank of clouds in August, you find yourself wishing it towards you.
But here and now, it's a lot to take. When we got back to Columbia County this afternoon, a freak band of clouds split up, and the sun came out for forty minutes. It was unthinkable joy, just pure delight. When we were kids in London, we used to joke about the BBC's weather forecast: they would call for "sunny intervals," which literally meant forty-five seconds of sunlight. When the sun would break through, someone would shout, and we'd all run outside and take a picture of ourselves, thus all the shots from that era are incongruously sunny:
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during a "sunny interval" at Michelle's birthday party, London 1977
So during today's sunny patch we took Lucy to meet the cows, who she adored. But we couldn't stay out long, because something worse than abject sun or neverending rain came along. A brutal bout of it, too. Apparently the worst piece of weather humans can experience, leading to uncontrollable anger, depression and suicide, is wind. Thank god we have each other to huddle around.
Posted by Ian Williams at May 15, 2006 08:43 PM"It'd been raining for five days before we got there on Saturday; it rained all weekend, and the forecast promised three more days of it." 10 days of rain? Bah. We had 27 straight days of rain a few months ago. Then after the one day break, it rained some more. The potholes that formed would swallow bicycles whole. A house down the street's foundation shifted because of the waterlogged ground. (Yikes.) 10 days of rain sounds like a typical week and a half in January around here. :)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/255840_norain16.html is the link I tried to post in the previous post.
Pizza joint? Pinocchio's by chance? If so, used to love that place but, like Waffle House, I've only been there in the wee hours.
Yes, the weekend was horribly dreary, but meeting up with you all on Sunday was the equivalent of a sunny interlude for me. Fantastic catching up with Tessa after all these years and finally meeting you and Lucy. She is truly radiant.
We are sodden, soggy, sluggish, sad, SAD-afflicted (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and sick to death of this weather here in RI.
However, the grass and trees are in hog heaven. The first day we get some sun, the GREEN is gonna knock everyone's eyes out. :-)
Note to Ken and CP -- I added one last reply to yesterday's thread, and a fascinating thread it was; thanks Ian and everyone who participated.
If you haven't already, you should read Ray Bradbury's short story, "All Summer in a Day." Puts the rain in cruel perspective.
Thanks for publicly recognizing our misery, Ian. We've tried pumping out our basement three or four times, but it keeps coming, and we don't have an automatic pump, so we can't just pump indefinitely. It does seem to have reached an equilibrium only a few inches deep, so I guess it could be a whole lot worse. Alas, my newly planted herb garden is dead for sure.
Also - and not to try and claim the rain title from Seattle, litlnemo - it's worth pointing out the discrepancy between what they're forecasting on the TV news and what they're forecasting on the online weather sites. As of yesterday, the latter had rain out as far as the eye could see in the 10 day.
Leigh, I remember seeing a short film years and years ago (I don't think I was even in high school yet) that I think was based on that Bradbury story. From what I remember, it rained every day except 1 day every so many months or even years. There were a bunch of kids at some sort of school and one got locked in a closet by the others, missing the 1 day of sunshine. Haunted me for some time thinking of that kid. Sad and depressing.
The high temperature today in Boston is predicted to be 55 degrees, with more rain. After all of this global warming the double-chinned stooge complains about every week, it is only 55 degrees in mid May, Ian conveniently left the temperature out of today's entry. Nice to see that he drove up to Boston and is now telling us about driving back to Los Angeles, Ian obviously doesn't buy into the peak oil BS that he constantly talks about, if he did he would cut back on all of that driving.
Amen to Cris - it was great to meet him and see Tessa and her old high school pal reconnect!
I was gonna say something about how that picture is really an all-star salute to the ghosts of the Williams Christmas Pasts, but seriously, every once in a while, J. Boogie's crap bums me out.
Dude, say what you want about liberal politics or conjecture about the future, argue any point, but all this double chin stuff is just rude. Rude in the same way that, say, a five iron to side of your head would be rude.
By the way, Ian has lost so much weight that his clothes are literally hanging off of him. When we went golfing the other day and he lost his temper like an irate 6 year old, I noticed that he looked more like an irate 13 year old... lanky with no baby fat.
ian, cloudy and chilly here. 82% chance of showers. woohoo!
anne d., cool.
here's a joke:
two cows are in a field. one turns to the other and says sure glad we don't have that mad cow disease. the other nods and says I know, good thing I'm a helicopter.
j. boogie reminds me of the other cow.
Despite all the rain and water from Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is at a rain deficit of almost 22 inches. I know we have to be very careful about what we ask for, especially as hurricane season approaches, but could you please send us a little of your rain? A cloudy, gray day would be welcome relief. In return we'll see about sending some of our sunlight your way!