Last Monday evening, we had a foretaste of autumn that whetted our appetites and encouraged us through the relentlessly sticky humidity here. Though it was nearly five, it was still 81°F with humidity in the 80% range, and the sky was all Heart of Darkness. We had to run errands after work hours, so dodged the odd sprinkle, and watched cloud-to-cloud lightning flashes on the way home. As we prepped dinner, the flurry of sprinkles turned on and off, and we heard grumbles of thunder that got closer and closer. Still didn’t think anything of it, though as a precaution brought our canvas chairs in from the yard. And then suddenly, while relaxing after supper – reading in front of a fan, with all the windows opened – we were blinded by a flash and the hair on our arms lifted. The supersonic BOOM chased a gust of cold wind through the house, and then the rain came just sluicing down. We stared at each other for a brief moment – T attempting to film the scene on her camera (which cheerfully began filming after she set it down) then said, “WINDOWS!” Yes. In a house without air conditioning, all of the windows in the house are generally open to catch any errant breeze… which wasn’t a problem on the front of the house, as the wind was coming form the other direction, but the back of the house gets the wind off the bay, and so we had water running through very dirty screens, bringing muddy spatters to light-colored wood flooring and white tile.
And may we just say that damp wool rugs smell a great deal like wet dog?
The rain, which lasted on and off for a couple of hours, with massive cloudbursts, finally broke the worst of the heat. Though the humidity lingered briefly, cooler winds prevailed, and ungainly egrets darted and flapped over the slough in seeming celebration (joining the REALLY LOUD GEESE, whose favorite time of day to practice flying in formation is the predawn hours, for some reason. The neighborhoods here are so, so quiet… and then there are the ducks. And the geese. And the rock doves. At least the egrets and herons, so far, are quiet. SO FAR). The National Weather Service reported Tuesday morning that 1,200 cloud-to-ground strikes and 5,800 in-cloud strikes hit the Bay Area Monday night, so that was a bit of excitement, as we got to see LOTS of them. We do wish our video had turned out, but T has since gotten a brief tutorial so subsequent videos should actually show scenes one wants to see, instead of a close-up of bedspreads and the floor. Le sigh.
Another harbinger of fall is the return of the chorale, and the vigorous humming of carols while showering, well before their time (but not, sadly, before some wrong-headed little drugstore has a Christmas tree display up in a back corner. People: can we get through school starting first? K, thanks). Last summer, T was invited to join a group of professional singers as their ringer soprano, but she declined – mostly because the chorus was made up of professionals – actors, singers, music professors, theater people – and she felt she’d be in over her head. After hearing of a chamber group holding auditions three miles from the house, she looked up the director… and discovered that he was one of the tenors in the group she’d been invited to join. She is much happier to meet him as an anonymous choir member, though the three-week audition period (!!!) is a bit nerve-wracking. Several chamber members sweetly refer to it as “letting us get comfortable before he turns the screws.”
As the summer wanes, things are still unsettled at D’s job, but as audits come and their reverberations trickle down through the company, he soldiers on, getting fingerprinted and checked out so the CDC can decide he’s an asset to lab/manufacturing areas, hiring contractors, and enjoying getting to know folks with the weekly free lunch-and-socialize times. T is past the halfway point on a summer book project that started out as “just an idea,” which took on a life of its own, and is bracing herself for the onslaught of reading to come as a book award judge. Things in the house are nearly settled now, with the screens finally in place, rugs and towels coordinating, and – soon! – the last pictures hung or stored. The challenge of living with constant humidity is reminding us, oddly, of Glasgow, where we required a dehumidifier for the closet. The linen closet has wire racks, so there’s sufficient air circulation; however, the clothes closet is its own little walk-in room, and depending on how the rains go this year, we may find we have a little problem. Still, it will never be as exciting as finding all of our clothes mildewed together in the closet like they did in Glasgow …At least we hope it’ll not get that exciting…!
Enjoy the last sweet summer fruit – the times, they are a-changing at long last, to the favorite season of all. Bring out those decorative gourds, people.
Autumn Day
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your long shadows on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go free.
Command the last fruits to be full;
give them just two more southern days,
urge them on to completion and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, will never build one.
Who is alone now, will long remain so,
will stay awake, read, write long letters
and will wander restlessly up and down
the tree-lines streets, when the leaves are drifting.
– Rainier Maria Rilke, translated by E. Snow,
