Waiting for the Storm (Richard Shindell)

The weekend was weird, in that we were dealing, or not, with the unpronounceable hurricane Isaias (four syllables - WTF?!?).  We experienced heavy rains Friday night, calm Saturday morning, more rains Saturday night, back to calm today, with a few scattered showers.  I'm not complaining, and certainly do not miss the days of installing shutters, taking down windchimes, and bringing patio furniture inside.  Plus I have plenty of non-perishables stashed away (PopTarts and canned soups and peanut butter, oh my!), and a Category 1-possibly-2-which-stayed-a-1-and-then-downgraded-to-a-tropical-storm, given all that we've gone through, is not even on my radar (pun intended).  Hoping the rest of the East Coast is as lucky as we were.

However, it did allow me to make good on a promise to Colin, in that I had given him a pair of dinosaur rainboots for his birthday a few weeks ago and vowed to accompany him on his first puddle-jumping adventure.  I had an extra pair, which I brought for Sarah and, by the time he woke up from his nap yesterday, most of the leftover rain had evaporated, but the *one* in her apartment complex parking lot did the trick, and we all stomped and jumped to our heart's content.  What a blast!

NR:  The Travelers by Regina Porter


SONG:  Waiting for the Storm by Richard Shindell

BOOK:  A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin

POEM:  Visitor by Brenda Shaughnessy

I am dreaming of a house just like this one

but larger and opener to the trees, nighter

than day and higher than noon, and you,

visiting, knocking to get in, hoping for icy

milk or hot tea or whatever it is you like.

For each night is a long drink in a short glass.

A drink of blacksound water, such a rush

and fall of lonesome no form can contain it.

And if it isn’t night yet, though I seem to

recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.

Did you receive my invitation? It is not

for everyone. Please come to my house

lit by leaf light. It’s like a book with bright

pages filled with flocks and glens and groves

and overlooked by Pan, that seductive satyr

in whom the fish is also cooked. A book that

took too long to read but minutes to unread—

that is—to forget. Strange are the pages

thus. Nothing but the hope of company.

I made too much pie in expectation. I was

hoping to sit with you in a tree house in a

nightgown in a real way. Did you receive

my invitation? Written in haste, before

leaf blinked out, before the idea fully formed.

An idea like a storm cloud that does not spill

or arrive but moves silently in a direction.

Like a dark book in a long life with a vague

hope in a wood house with an open door.

QUOTE:  "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning how to dance in the rain." ~ Vivian Greene