...And the Rains Came...

The rains came last night. Heavy, relentless, sheets of rain are falling on the South Shore and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Most people in my neck of the sand like this weather-- at least a little. If you live directly on the water you may get nervous. But most old salt dogs are too smart to build something on stilts or on an open bluff without a seawall. The others... well, if you're going to move here you should probably ignore the snooty architect and the builders and listen to the locals. There's a reason our antique Victorians and weathered old Capes are still standing.


It's funny, though, how a nor'easter simply doesn't faze locals. I got up this morning to find weather-persons around the country wigging out a weenie bit. I went out with Max, got my two papers, a dozen donuts, and coffee. When I drove over the Green Harbor Bridge on Beach Street the tide was out. When I came back, via Ocean's Bluff, it was heading back in. There were rows of people wearing rain slickers taking photographs of the surf, which was not dangerous... but it was pretty. At Walgreen's it was pretty simple to spot the transplants... they were buying candles, matches, and milk.

You should already have the candles and matches. The milk's gonna spoil if you loose the power. We only stock up on perishables in the winter. We are more likely to loose the power then, but we just stick a cooler out on the porch and let mother nature be our frig.

Silly newbies.

Anyway, nobody around here was worried. We know when to worry. This is just a storm, not a nor'easter or a hurricane or a blizzard. This is one of those beautiful rages that follows the river to the harbor, hangs out off the coast when the tide is out, and later blows back in just to be belligerent. We like those storms. They make life interesting. I imagine people in the mid-west know when to get worried about tornado warnings. People in California know when to duct-tape the stuff down when a tremor feels a specific way. It's different when you've lived with it all your life. (I would probably wig out and run screaming like a baby if I encountered an earth quake. We live on a fault line, but it's the kind that causes mild tremors every 10 years or so, and it's not the kind that makes big holes.)

How's the weather where you are?