Rain!

"Don't let the rain come down

Oh no, don't let the rain come down

Don't let the rain come down,

My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown"

--Serendipity Singers



"When the rain comes, they hide themselves in bed

They might as well be dead

When the rain comes

When the rain comes"

--The Beatles

Here, like many places this summer, we have been having LOTS of very hot steamy weather. And, as many of you know, yours truly earns a crust by carrying the mail. I am that woman wearing the pith helmet, with a dog hanging fashionably off of each shapely leg, shaking her fist at the sky and shouting, "Curse you, sun! Curse you!"

Well, today was another baker, and there I was, a little steamed vegetable wilting in the heat. I was walking around the 'hood in my postal shorts and red tank, having abandoned my diabolically designed, heat-retaining postal uniform shirt. This is strictly against the rules, of course. One must be in full and proper postal costume at all times, but you know how I get with rules. I know they exist, but I am foggy about why, or what they have to do with little old me. 

I had no sooner started my third walking loop, when clouds rolled in and the skies opened. No, I don't mean that J.C. stepped down out of Heaven and gathered all the good people with him, leaving me to turn out the lights. I mean, buckets, torrents, absolute walls of rain started pouring down out of the sky. At first, the drops were actually cold against the skin of my neck and back. It wasn't long before I was practically swimming up the block. And do you know what? It was glorious.

Remember when you were small, and a summer rain would start, and you would run outside just to horse around in it and cool off? I am thinking that, unless you have young kids to be your beard ("I'm just out here with the kids! Honest!"), the only way a grown woman of a certain age can wander around the neighborhood in a rainstorm, grinning like a fool, without being taken away by the police or hospital orderlies, is to be a mail lady.

Uncomplicated joy. Kids know all about it. I remembered it today. I had it today.  Oh yeah. *dances* How ya like me now? Uh huh! Yes, I got soaked. And I loved every second of it. Now, if it had been 45 degrees and blustery, then that's another matter. But it was 92 degrees and raining cats and dogs (gatos y perros? was that it, Ily? or did I just say "cats and alarm clocks" or something? Ha!) and it was just as nice as a free popsicle.

Rain, I don't mind. As the Beatles sang, the weather's fine. :-)

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