Rain

On Friday we had the first actual rainfall since we moved here. I awoke at about 5:30 am to the now-unfamiliar sound of rain beating down. There were several showers that day. I heard on the radio that LA received it's first rain in 150 days; for the island it may have been longer.

If you've ever wondered how quickly dust turns to mud, I am now an expert. The water soaks into the first inch or so of dust before it starts to run off. That top layer turns into a clay-like substance, which sticks to any tire- or shoe-like substance that it touches. Lugged soles or tires are pretty much worthless after about 20 seconds; after that you have slick mud caked on what is supposed to be giving you traction. I heard that we got about 1/2 inch of rain that day. It seemed like more than that to me, especially as I was shifting the truck into 4-wheel drive for the trip over to the lab.

Amusing aside: I used to laugh at the Marylanders when school would be canceled when 1/4 inch of snow fell. Sometimes they'd cancel school on the threat of snow. Well, on Friday they canceled a field trip from the LRS to Avalon on the THREAT of RAIN! Granted the rain did actually appear, and I wouldn't have wanted them to go on the slick roads, but still I found it funny.

So things appear greener here right now, although I can't tell if that's because things are growing or just that the dust has been washed off.


Speaking of dust, here is a picture of the back of our truck prior to the rain, just to show you how dusty things get around here. It seems like we'd do better to have windshield brushes rather than wipers.

One last note: We got our satellite TV hooked up. A nice man (who apparently spent 20 years as a professional break-dancer) came out on the ferry and was able to set up our satellite dish in between the morning and afternoon rain showers on Friday. I watched several football games (Go Trojans!), one futbol game (Spanish league!), and two soccer games (Man City v Fulham, and the unfortunate ManU/Chelsea affair) over the weekend, and tonight I even got to watch the Daily Show for the first time since July! One benefit to West Coast living is that the Daily Show is on at 10pm, leaving you an hour to blog. (It's also on at 8pm, but the kids are still running around at that point.) I guess I have mixed feelings about it, but the mix is heavily on the 'thank goodness' side.