BLAME IT ON THE RAIN

Rain and I have had a tenuous relationship for a long time.  I like the sound and the smell and the general green-ness that follows, but I dislike its bad habit of clouding the sky and leaving the world in that situation for long stretches of time.  I dislike its tendency to dampen my mood.  But maybe that's something that I bring to the relationship, and not the fault of the rain at all.

The next-door lilac bush (I don't know the people who live in the house, so my interactions have been exclusively with the surrounding plant life) is now dangling into our driveway.  Several branches no longer stand upright but are drooped over so as to better scrape against the side of our car every time we come or go.  I don't know if I can blame that on the rain either, and it doesn't look like the work of the wind, but the bush was fine before the thunderstorm last night, and now it looks almost pathetic.

It is certainly the rain's fault that our yard so closely resembles a jungle.  Mark mowed the lawn just a few days ago, but the ministrations of a few choice cloudbursts have restored it to a wild and untamed wilderness.  The dandelions are thriving.

What I'd like to do for as long as these grey days persist is to sit inside reading, letting the grass grow out of hand, watching from inside as the undamaged part of the next-door bush blooms cheerfully.  What I have really been doing is painting the new bookshelves in our living room and hoping for enough leftover energy to make dinner, or at least make sure we have clean socks.  It would not be unreasonable to expect to do all that and more in a day, but the rain is drumming away at my motivation.  Rainy days were made for reclining on the couch with a novel . . .

But here are a few other things that are the rain's fault: tulips in the backyard, leaves on the monstrous tree in the front, and purple flowers on the lilac bush next door.  The accompanying thunder delights my husband, and I have frequent excuse to wear the waterproof boots that I am particularly fond of.  Rain and I will probably always have a rocky relationship, but we'll get along.  As long as the flowers keep blooming, we'll get along just fine.