Spring exit

Growing up in Boise, rain was exciting. We didn't get it nearly as much as we do in Spokane (or so it seems to me). I have such vivid memories of sitting on the cement with my best friend Laura, watching the drops soak in around us and singing "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring." Poor old man. He was missing out on a weather event!

At school, the rain didn't often deter our recess unless it was hailing or something, and it was always fun to be out with my see-through umbrella that had a Mickey Mouse pattern on it.

I especially loved rain in the summer, and those times I could float around in the pool while big drops hit the water. Who cares if you get wet? You're already wet.

I still love the smell: mulchy and sweet; the lamp light that warms up the room in the daytime; the hopelessly optimistic rainy-day music it inspires me to think of (besides the aforementioned "Old Man" song) - "Singin' in the Rain," or my favorite, Shirley Temple's "I Love to Walk in the Rain."

It rained for almost two days straight this past week, and I couldn't help but think of old Shirley again (R.I.P.) and feeling "wonderful when the skies above are thunderful." (Here's the clip. Sweet, if a little racially uncomfortable, as was typical of these old musicals.) I wouldn't say that my love of rain is nearly as strong as it was when I was a kid, or if you could even call it a love of rain. In fact, I usually moan about it because it is often followed by dry, gray days around here. But in weeks like this one, when the forecast shows a solidly upward trend toward sun and warm weather by the weekend, I can certainly appreciate the free watering of my garden.

By Wednesday evening, the sun had returned.

 Luna's not really a huge fan of the rain. She needs vitamin D, too. Also: your eyes are not playing tricks on you - there is indeed a fanny pack in the picture. He totally rocks it, too.

I love these furry catalpa leaves.

(Another reason these old neighborhoods are the best: the street names are etched into the sidewalks.)

The eve of summer happens to be about the time Joel and I commemorate the first time we went out as a *couple* instead of just pals, and shortly thereafter launched just about the funnest summer anyone could have. It's time to bring on another. My summer journal begins on Saturday.

Dear weekend,

Sorry about that. I was rotten to you. I cursed you for your crummy weather and for not offering me a break. It's just that the other weekend was much more promising of things to come, and then you came and were a total wet blanket. Nevertheless, I acted in a way I shouldn't.

By the time Sunday morning came around, at least, I felt much better. If there's something to love about a free Friday night, there's certainly something to also love about a fresh Sunday morning, knowing you have a clean slate. I think it even made my coffee taste different (though I will admit I did switch blends that morning).

The rainy weekend wasn't all bad, of course, and here are things that I managed to love about it:

1. Curling up under a down blanket to watch Singin' in the Rain on Friday night. How many times have I watched that movie, I'd like to know. I feel the cadence of not only the music but also the dialogue in the very depths of my brain. "Zelda! Wooo, Zelda!" Such joy it has brought to many a humdrum day. "It makes us feel as though our hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'." Truly.

2. Participating in a standing ovation for my big brother and the young musicians behind him. He's the conductor of my alma mater's wind symphony, and they were all freshly tanned from their recent tour in Costa Rica.

3. A late-night, post-party conversation about first cars and odd couples.

4. A Monte Cristo sandwich at Wall Street Diner. We go there nearly every other weekend and split this sandwich every time. I have officially fulfilled a life goal of having a bar to sit at where the server knows my "usual."

5. Some spiteful games of Spite and Malice.

6. Lemon and almond meringues, or, as some like to call them, "angel poop".

This thing I've begun...

Why is it that everyone else seems to have this gardening thing down as though it's second nature? I can't tell you how many times I've visited Google, searching phrases like "how to start tomatoes," "zone 5," "how long does it take for [anything] to happen," and "what kind of soil to use."

To summarize my previous attempts at this sort of thing, the first was spoiled by insufficient warmth, the second by insufficient light. For my third attempt, I made sure there was plenty of both, though it did cost me $45 to make it so by purchasing a heating mat and grow light.

So far, so good.

Every day I come home and see how these happy little living (!) seedlings are doing. It's been about 3 weeks now. Tomatoes, peppers, basil and rosemary. There might be some sage in there somewhere.


On a barely related note, a couple nights ago, I found myself watching a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, "Shall We Dance," by no means for the first time in my life. The strangest thing about Fred and Ginger is that their romance rarely progresses through dialogue, but rather through movement and unexplained mind-changing (mostly on Ginger's part). They begin a dance with Ginger giving Fred the cold shoulder, and by their final dip, Ginger's smiling and they're in love. They go behind a door as friends, and when the door opens again, they're blushing and giddy. This movie was no exception. There is nothing Fred can say in the first 30 minutes to impress Ginger. Then he finds her walking her dog on a ship, decides borrows some dogs to walk alongside her, and boom, Ginger warms up to him due to his persistence in getting in her line of sight - or was it because her little dog knew better than to resist such a debonair man?



To sing a song like "Beginner's Luck" after a whole 30 minutes of failed attempts to get someone to fall in love with you seems a little boastful and, hello, untrue. But when it comes to gardening, maybe I should take a tip from Fred in being persistent, then acting like it was fate all along when it finally works. Then maybe I'll join the ranks of the know-it-all gardeners. But we'll have to wait and see.