rain rain

The 4th of July was slightly anticlimactic around these parts. It rained off and on for days before and all day on the 4th. Every fireworks show was cancelled or postponed and the floodgates had to be opened on our section of the Chattahoochee so flash flood warnings scrolled across the bottom of every news station. I got an eyeful of the river as we drove across the bridge and watched the rock islands and trees along the bank slowly be sucked down into the swirling foam. No kayaks allowed.

Every store has their display of umbrellas picked clean, and the rest of us are digging through the garage looking for that long forgotten blue and white stripe. I do own an umbrella, don’t I? It rarely sees the light of day and certainly doesn’t live in the car. Not here in the South where droughts are more common than candy bars and rain showers are a brief afterthought between bursts of uninterrupted heat wave.

The chickens cluck at me pitifully while rain drizzles down their beaks and I turn them back into the coop without their usual foraging time in the backyard. I tell them it’s better to the wet and cool than hot and dry. Which sounds halfhearted because, truthfully, they aren’t the only ones missing the sunshine.

On the other hand, these many days of rain have afforded us the rare experience of ducking into storefronts and coffee shops to escape a sudden downpour. Waiting for the rain to stop isn’t a common activity around here, so you feel a certain kinship to the people at the next table who also didn’t bring an umbrella. And while we’re in here, we might as well order up a slice of cheesecake and a warbling tune from the jukebox.