This crazy Spring Weather

What’s going on with the weather?
I can’t recall seeing so much rain in a single week or month in these parts. All day rain, consecutive days like a tropical climate' rainy season and we’re not having summer temperatures. Granted it’s not like the monsoon, maybe monsoon like, or the torrential rains of some places, but just rain, rain, light rain, heavy rain, intermittent rain, major downpour of rain, every day rain, day in and day out in some combination of flow.

What’s going on this year? Is El Niño/La-Nina getting major, the green house effect is in effect, changing climate, global warming needs a cooling or just some aberration in the climate in this part of the world. Is the weather this spring a type of cyclical recurrence, not necessarily from our environmental destruction or excesses or over indulgence? Is this something that occurs ever ‘X’ years or million of years? Is there any such data or report for us to check into? I am getting water logged.

I was watching ABC News Nightline Program last evening and they had a segment on the weather. They reported that the country is seeing tornados, hot and cold temperatures, mudslides; a weather pattern that has 'flipped' from the usual to this. For example the reporter said that the mid-west has seen 70 tornadoes since the spring with winds so fierce they've tossed trains off the track, hailstorms from Colorado to New Jersey and mudslides in Utah. Sam Champion, the reporter continued, Seattle Washington had no rain in 28 days of the season while New York City had 18 days of rain, 150% of the normal rain fall with torrential down pours that interrupted ball games. DC had doubled the amount of rainfall.

Don’t get me wrong I like the rain. I like to play in the rain, I like to stay in on a rainy day and eat soup, watch movies, play games or go out and splash in the puddles but the latent effect of so much rain can be a doozey. I like singing in the rain, the movie, and singing in the rain with the kids. Going out to work or about the business of living and getting wet and wet and wet again is no fun. Not to mention the illnesses that may befall us from all this exposure, they can be ugly. Hey what gives?

I know the plants and the environment need rain, we all need the rain but not so much, not all at once. We will have excesses in the rivers, the dams, the soil, watch out, floods! grass and bugs; flees, ticks, mosquitoes, flies, bees, you got the picture, right?! That’s another problem. Flowers are one of my favorite things and they need the water to bloom etc but they too could have a problem from too much rain at the same time.

So, what do we want?

Just the right amount of rain, balance!

When do we want it?

N-O-W!

Hey, Mother Nature are you listening?!

Husbands beware, wives stock up on the bengay, mineral ice and other treatments; oh those aching backs! Get plenty of Off, and other repellants, Benedryl and other allergy stuff and tissues, aaahchoo! I think we are in for a prickly ride this summer.

Hmm...! for those of you on the coasts, gear up for the hurricane season, it might be a looloo!
Be merciful Mother Nature. Give us a break.

Disappearing Umbrella

This was a very rainy week for us. Well, I think it was especially since I got caught in the rain a few times this week. Friday was the worst day in the rain for me. I had several appointments and things to do that required me going from place to place. The umbrella was helpful earlier in the week but totally useless and costly on Friday. I say useless because the wind was too strong for the umbrellas, big, small cute or plain old umbrellas. Folks including me were running to get replacement ones even though I was completely soaked and the wind gust which didn’t subside was relentless. The umbrellas were turned inside out and the rain had a good shot at you. The wind was so fierce that if we weren't so water logged there would have been a lot of "Mary Popping" umbrella scene and ladies in the sky.

My issue here however is with the umbrellas. How many times have you lost, left, misplace or forgot your umbrella at the last place you stopped while carrying it? And this includes on a rainy day, while it's still raining. I have lost count of the number of times I have lost my umbrella. Believe it or not it happened this time as well. Granted I was getting minimal coverage from the umbrella this day but it was still a good one and it could be more useful on another rainy day.

Well, I stepped into a store out of the rain to grab a cup of Joe as I headed to work. Of course there was a line in the store. As I got to the cashier I placed the umbrella on the counter to pay, collected my goodies and move on. Oh yeah, I moved on minus the umbrella. I was already wet as I said; I was only a couple of doors away from the job so I made a run for it not realizing that I left the umbrella. Now I am inside again and then I miss the umbrella. Should I run back out for my umbrella? Oh, on a day like this will it still be there? Is it worth going out again to get more wet? Hmmm, what to do? I will certainly need an umbrella to get along my way throughout the day. If I leave it there I will have to buy a new one and money is tight, or I will have to borrow one. With the wind gusts I might damage the loaner umbrella and will have to replace it. I might have to buy two umbrellas instead of one. Hmmm; decisions, decisions. Well, I made a run back to the store to collect my umbrella and guess what? It was g-o-n-e! That was all of 5 minutes. I sauntered back to my office resigned to buying an umbrella to help me through the day.

As I went back to the office I wasn’t sure how to react or what to think about the disappearance of the umbrella. I ran through several scenarios in my head that the 'taker' might have considered; I was silly to have left it? Maybe I (the owner) was finished with it? It was someone’s lucky day, or, gee giving the kind of weather we’re having, someone didn’t find the umbrella useful and discarded it. Or, and this could be real, someone really needed an umbrella and I met that need.

Well whatever the reason for collecting my unattended umbrella, I hope it does me proud and it meets the needs of the taker. It served me well. What was your thoughts or reaction when you forgot your umbrella and wasn't able to retrieve it? Good riddance. Ah gee, what the heck? Well maybe I did a good deed!