It was grey and damp over the weekend, which meant it was the perfect weather for Saturday’s International Tabletop Day board game party, and the rain returned Monday night and is still going on as I write this on Wednesday night. Rain and I have a special relationship, so this week’s list is all about that.
1) I grew up on A. A. Milne’s children’s books. Most people know him as the creator of Winnie the Pooh, but my favorite of his works is the book that was published right after Now We Are Six. It’s called A Gallery of Children, and it’s comprised of short stories that are all character studies of different children. My favorite is “A Voyage to India.” Here’s an excerpt:
To-day was the day. To-morrow will be too late. Perhaps even now if it cleared up – but each time she has said this, down has come another cloud. She tried shutting her eyes; she did try that. She tried shutting her eyes and saying, “One, two, three, four – I’ll count twenty and then I’ll open them, and please, will you let the rain stop by then, please, because it’s too terribly important, you know why.” Yes, she counted twenty; quickly, up to twelve, and then more slowly to fifteen, and then sixteen…seventeen…eighteen…nine-…teen…and then, so slowly that it wasn’t really fair, but she wanted to make it easier for God, twe…twe…twe…TWENTY!
But it went on raining.
2) On rainy days, I prefer tea to coffee. I love the way the sugar hisses as it falls into the tea (I don’t typically sweeten coffee). I love the way the rain hisses as it falls into my swimming pool.
3) When there is no actual rain outside, on really hot, dry days, I have movie marathons of weather disasters. A typical choice would be a double feature of The Perfect Storm and The Day After Tomorrow.
4) When I was a kid, I had no idea what a rain barrel was. When my friends and I sang, “Say, Say, My Playmate,” we would sing “Slide down my rainbow,” instead of the original line. (How do you slide down a rain barrel, anyway?)
5) Langston Hughes on rain:
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
6) My idea of the perfect afternoon is a pot of tea, a stack of books, and a driving rainstorm. A fire in the fireplace is nice, but not necessary.
7) My ability to willfully suspend disbelief is so well-honed that if we see a movie with significant weather, I expect it the actual weather to be the same when we leave the theater. This is especially true for movies where there’s a lot of rain.
8) Despite the above, I actually have a very low threshold for movies where people are tired, hungry, cold, dirty, and wet for long periods of time.
9) A significant part of my childhood was spent in Colorado, where, during the summer, it rains every day, but only for about fifteen minutes. There is NOTHING like a Rocky Mountain rainstorm.
10) I didn’t start getting storm-related migraines until I moved to Texas eight years ago, but the funky purple-grey-green light that comes with storms has always made my eyes hurt. I don’t wear sunglasses at night, but I do wear them on rainy days.
11) I’m not a fan of power-outages, but on dark, dreary rainy days, I like to enhance the mood by keeping the lights dim and lighting candles. There’s something so magical about flickering flames inside and flashing lightning outside, and the combined scents of ozone and candle wax.
12) For my Sunday Brunch post at All Things Girl on March 31st, I wrote about rain. Read about My Romance with Rain.
13) On rainy days, my musical tastes run to instrumental jazz or classical music, rather than anything with lyrics, but my favorite rain-related song ever is Vienna Teng’s “Lullaby for a Stormy Night.” Here’s the video: