Saturday, September 22, 2018

God's Pants: Change Is Coming

Splat.

"Did you splat?" I asked Dave, as we sat on the front porch behind a wisteria veil, pulling in the last of the day, our beers kindled by the setting sun.

"No." Splat. Splat splat splat. "Did you splat?"

No. We were forced to stand up and investigate, and there, at our front walk, splatting was confirmed to be happening, all over the place, great fat fatty splats of water right out of the sky, like God's trousers were leaking nickels. They spanked dust puffs out of the garden soil; they astonished the pavement.

Serious, world-class, double-wide, fattycake raindrops in the setting sun can cheer a body up like nobody's business. "There's got to be a tremendous rainbow," I said. "To the tower!"

Because the tower is closer to the sky.

This would be the same tower we hied to when our neighbor Gayle saw us out in the yard a few years ago and hollered out her back door "You all better get inside! There's a huge storm coming! They said on the radio everybody needs to get inside!"

And so we got inside and went instantly to the tower where we could, indeed, see a huge and energetic storm rolling our way, all pink and gray and whippy and momentous, and with very little hesitation we decided to get even closer to it by climbing out the window and crawling out onto the roof, where Gayle spotted us and commenced hollering again. What she meant was get in the house, not on the house. What she meant was get to the basement and crawl under a workbench in the duck-and-cover position and quiver and get ourselves right with the Lord, until the all-clear signal was given. We stayed on the roof. It was grand.

This time we settled for staying inside, since it was in fact already raining, with the setting sun slicing underneath, and sure enough there was a tremendous rainbow, a real humdinger, the kind of sturdy rainbow that dives straight into the ground in the vicinity of a pot of gold. Like, right over there.

But we know better than to go looking for a pot of gold. It's like chasing sandhill cranes. Sandhill cranes come hootling out of the sky and drift to the ground with a tilt and a bounce on their clackety stilts and then they stand around gorgeously in a herd. And so you sidle toward them all stealthy like you're chasing wabbits, and without them moving a gangly leg bone they melt away from you at the same rate you're approaching them. You never get closer to a herd of sandhill cranes. They like to keep their beauty for each other.

So. Pot of gold, the exact same way. It's all right. If I did find a pot of gold I'd just trade it in for more rain.

41 comments:

  1. We had the same fat splatty raindrops here last week but they didn't last long and soon the sun was out again, but not even a shadow of a rainbow to be seen.

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    1. It's bad when they don't even quite connect on the sidewalk.

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    2. Please, please take some of our endless rain here in Kentucky. I wish I could sent it your way. Fish are drowning here.

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    3. Oh man. I was thinking no one in North Carolina would be happy with this post, but...

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  2. Ooo! You caught a double rainbow! Someday I hope to see a triple. Physically and theoretically I know they must exist (and I suspect the colors reverse again so they're arranged as in the main rainbow), but I've yet to see one.

    Silly wabbits--you left your pots of gold on the porch railing!

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    1. Wow! I never noticed that the colors were reversed in a double rainbow! Now I definitely need to look for a triple...

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    2. They're rare if they actually exist at all. But I can think of worse ways to spend your time! And cbott? We most assuredly did not leave dem pots o' gold on the porch railing!

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  3. I saw a triple in Norway-what a surprise and a treat.

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    1. I read something about the third one being in the opposite part of the sky (where the sun is), which doesn't make sense. Are you sure you didn't get into some bad lutefisk?

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    2. I didn't even get into some good lutefisk. And I swear to doG that it was a triple.

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  4. "They astonished the pavement."
    I love that sentence.

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    1. You know, I liked it, but I couldn't have told you why, and I put it in anyway, so thanks, all.

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  5. I learnt recently that the supposedly dark band between the two rainbows is called the Alexander Band, presumably because it's the best in the land?

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    1. We get a lot of rainbows here in this city because it is so often raining here and there but not in between. I've always marveled at how the sky underneath and above a rainbow is two different colors but never paid attention to the in-betweener!

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    2. Winner of the Pun-o'-the-Day award!

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  6. Gorgeous rainbow(s) pic!!

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    1. Thanks! I've got better. From that first storm that Gayle warned us about. Man, that was a day.

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  7. Wow - great shot! It's hard to get rainbow pics, they dissolve so quickly.

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    1. Not here. I swear we get more rainbows than anywhere, which is good inasmuch as we probably would have voted for them.

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  8. Saw a rainbow's end one day. Came down and terminated right in the middle of Route 18 in NJ. I drove through it and looked back. Physicists no doubt will snicker, but I was struck by the fact that rainbows can only be viewed from one direction. On the other side, they ain't there.

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  9. I don't recall rain. Been a long time.

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  10. I swear those splats were going to mean I didn't need to water one of my flower pots. No such luck. I find it amazing how much I long for rain right now!

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    1. I'm one of those weird ones that still isn't sick of rain when it's been raining for months. Remember when that used to happen?

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  11. You may never get the pot of gold; but a pot of pot - now that is doable.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. Not by this kid! I'll keep a bud in the cupboard for you though.

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  12. It would be interesting to know where your readers live...we could do a weather map of the world! Me, I'm about two miles east
    from your house, as the crow flies. Mostly the same weather system.

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    1. Howdy neighbor! It's amazing though how many microclimates exist in the mouth of the gorge. Or the butt end; I don't know which it is.

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  13. A long time ago, in a universe far away, I watched a sunset over portland to the north, and a huge rainbrow ranging from the hawthorne bridge to the new one that connected the freeways. It might have been magical/influenced by the substances, not sure.

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    1. The sunset to the north is a little odd, I'll give you.

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  14. Here in Delaware, we finally had a weekend without rain. I celebrated by spending the entire morning Saturday garage saling (and there were a lot, as people were taking advantage of the sunshine.) It's amazing how friendly and blissed-out people are when the weather finally changes. I had so many interesting conversations and shared so many laughs with total strangers. When you finally get substantial rain, expect dancing in the streets and singing in the rain.

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    1. Apropos of nothing, Dave and I both really enjoy talking with strangers. We do a ton of it.

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  15. Your description of the sandhill cranes reminds me of one of my favorite chapters in my favorite book -- "The Yearling" -- Jody and his father come upon a flock of whooping cranes in the evening marsh, dancing the cotillion.

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    1. Shoot, I don't remember that! Then again, I don't remember much.

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  16. Chapter Ten. "Magic birds were dancing in a mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow waters, and the earth fluttered under them."

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