I've said many times that I love rainy, windy, stormy weather, and this weekend we've had that. I was fortunate enough to be behind the plate-glass windows at Atelier in Santana Row having a day of total self-indulgence during the worst of Saturday's weather. While I was having my hair cut and colored, having a facial and a manicure and getting my eyebrows waxed, and later, while I was playing with makeup colors I'd never have thought to wear, my poor husband was up on a ladder cleaning out the rain gutters, because they were overflowing.

We lost power, but since we weren't home for most of Saturday, we don't know for how long. I do know that traffic was scary in our part of town because all the traffic lights along Stevens Creek from Meridian to Winchester were out. Uncontrolled mall traffic. *Shudder.*

By the time we did get home, after driving through the storm-battered and unlit streets of Campbell hoping our favorite Chinese place would have power, and being bitterly disappointed, we were wet and tired, and not in the mood to drive all the way out to the Hayes Mansion for the party we'd been invited to.

And the dogs were freaking.

Zorro was a stray when we got him – we rescued him from the streets almost exactly four years ago, and he was drenched from being out in the rain, covered with fleas, and starving – and even now rain scares him. For days he's been hovering at my feet, and wearing a distressed expression, and that was before the suitcases for our impending vacation ever made it into the house.

Cleo, on the other hand, is a wuss dog. She barks, loudly, at anything she doesn't understand, as if deafening the threat will immobilize it. (If the threat is human, she'll then cower, and leak, but that's another issue.) We've tried every kind of training to break her of this, and nothing works. Still, even though she looked pathetic, there were elements of humor in seeing her cower from lightning flashes, or hearing her try to outbark the thunder.

But neither dog liked the howling wind, which sounded like a million angry owls descending on our house last night. And neither is going near the pool, usually the thing they run around all day, because the wind has made the water so choppy it looks like a water tank for a naval disaster film.

Yesterday, we spent the morning being completely lazy. (And I do mean completely, we finally stirred ourselves for showers and leaving the cozy confines of bed at about 1:30), and then did a marathon six-hour shopping trip – VallCo Mall (because there's always parking, and it's never crowded), Big Lots (where I can indulge my niece's love of all things Barbie for almost no money), and Barnes and Noble.

And today it's back to work, to finish out the pipeline, hopefully by Wednesday. Thursday the whole office is doing a foofy lunch, and Friday we're driving up to San Rafael to bribe the staff of one of the lenders we work with. I'm sitting here drinking mint tea and waiting for Fuzzy to get dressed, because I was up at seven despite going to bed at three, and thinking that storms are way more fun when you don't have to leave home.