Storms
19 September 2002, 11:13 AM

I love storms.

I don't much care for the bland, grey, drizzly days. They just slow me down and make me feel tired and depressed. I only like those kind of days if it's also COLD outside and I can curl up inside with warm things and bright things.

Ah, but storms ... now those I like. I love the bazillion different shades of grey in the sky and the obvious layers stacked ontop of each other. There's billowing clouds and fast moving drifts. There's shadows and highlights and the whole sky looks like a mountain range. The air feels alive, and I feel alive. It's just lovely.

Obviously, it's raining here today. This morning the sky had that lovely stormy look, though by now it's faded into a bland and solid grey. At least it's kept temperatures down into the 70's and 80's (21-29 C) during the daytime. In fact, we've had a lot of rain here this year, and all of it has lingered long enough at just the right times to make this the coolest summer I've seen in a long time.

Usually temperatures here hit the 90's (33 C) in June, then climb over a hundred somewhere in July, staying there all through August. In really hot summers, like on just a couple of summers ago, the 100's (37.8 C) start early in July remain all through September. (I last bought a car during Labor Day weekend in 113 (45 C) degree heat.) We don't see this kind of lovely cool weather until about late October, even November. But this year we never made it into the 100's. Most of July was actually cool because of the rain storms that lingered. This cool weather right now is almost ... weird. Not that I'm complaining, mind you!

I do wish I had a house with a backyard though. I would have had some seedlings in the ground and flowers planted in pots and beds to take advantage of all this. (Fall is our second growing season around here.) Someday, soon.

Anyway. It's rather obvious I'm a life-long southerner. I love these southern rainstorms. I don't mind being caught out in one, and I'm not afraid of walls of water sheeting down and freeway traffic grinding to a 5mph crawl while we try to see 5 feet in front of us. Hurricanes? Bah! Now snow scares the snot out of me on the road. But floods and Texas monsoons are what I grew up with.