Have you ever seen the rain...

This afternoon, as it was-- for yet another day-- too hot to even think of moving, and the run of good TV luck I'd been having for a couple of hours had expired, I returned to my bedroom to pick up the National Geographic where I'd left off last night. However, after finishing one article and halfway into the next, my head could no longer resist the inescapable draw of the pillow (correction: pillows, as I think I have 6 on my bed).

What brought on this weakness? Perhaps it was the comfort of my wonderful bed (this is a recurring problem while trying to read, due to my ongoing failure to acquire any kind of actual furniture for my living room). Perhaps it was the momentary escape from the obnoxious, ongoing screeching/humming noise of unspecified origin which had started outdoors some time earlier in the day, and which could be heard clearly throughout the rest of the apartment. Perhaps it was the belly happily full of tofu sloppy joe. Perhaps it was just the heat.

Anyway, I awoke from my dozing just long enough to fumble for my phone and set the alarm for some 45 minutes later, lest I doze all evening. I didn't make it even that long, however. For some reason, about 15 minutes later I found myself awake, stretching like a sleepy kitty and drowsily gazing out of my sheer-purple-IKEA-curtained windows at the sky over the building across the street. I saw its gray hue. I saw the dozen or so drops of wetness on the middle of my windowpane-- appearing to be one of those little splashes that comes some times, when the wind grows strong and there is the teasingest sense of a storm coming... only to have a few small droplets whipped against the window, and then nothing.

Yet as I lay there, I had the growing sensation that it was actually raining. As in, present tense. Could I be dreaming? I peered down at the street, only to find it dark with wetness. Hurray!!

For those of you who live in Michigan, or other equally soggy parts of the world-- especially if you've never lived anywhere else-- you will not fully understand the sheer joy that rain brings to those, such as myself, who are used to wetter climes but now find themselves stranded in arid landscapes. Once or twice (I think twice is wishful thinking, as I can only recall one occasion for certain) in the fall, I saw it rain very hard in Denver... for about 2 minutes. So perhaps you can understand my haste as I traded in my long skirt for shorts (the better to feel the cool rain, of course) and hunted for my keys, that I could get outside and feel the rain before it was gone, not to return for days, weeks, or months.

In Michigan, you wonder if you'll be able to make it indoors before the rain begins. In Colorado, you wonder if you'll be able to make it outdoors before the rain ends. At least, if you're from Michigan, you do.

Leaving my apartment, intending just to go around the block, I marveled that this could be the only time in Denver that I could actually venture outdoors without sunglasses (my shades are usually a constant companion, even all winter). I ran down to the back door of my building. Peering out the squares of glass in the door, I wondered at the bright sun and whether it was even still raining anymore. A glance down at the cement pad behind the building, however, confirmed that it was, with little raindrops dancing on the already-moistened ground.

I happily stepped out into the rain-- now in the strong sunshine of broad daylight in the Rockies, I probably could have used my shades after all-- and headed down the alley, intending to start with a little trip around 1/4 of my block, to see how hard it was raining (and because I'd heard a slight and distant thunder rumble, while still in my apartment) before heading all the way around the block.

Now when I say that I stepped into the rain, I do not mean it was pouring cats or dogs or any other sort of small creatures. It was brightly sunny, and while it was a little bit more than misting-- I could see actually droplets on my clothes-- I would have had to stay out in it for quite some time to get any amount of really seriously wet. Yet people in Colorado tend to overreact to any sort of moisture that isn't snow. No, I take that back, they overreact to snow, too, because the snow here (down in Denver, anyhow) usually melts within a day or two, on all things paved anyway, and all winter I did not see anything like the ice of Michigan form on road or sidewalk.

So yes, Coloradans generally act like they will melt at the slightest hint of water. Shortly after moving to Denver, I saw people walking around in full rain gear (I don't think I ever even saw rain pants-- is that even what they're actually called??-- in person, in Michigan) and giant golf umbrellas, in the mildest of mists. I once saw a headline that read something like "Coloradans beware: Moisture on the way!"

The first person I encountered on my rain-sprinkled walk was a woman on a cell phone. I smiled at her. She eyed me suspiciously from under the rim of her huge black umbrella. I fully assume that after completing her phone call, she hastily dialed up whomever one dials up when one suspects that there is a certifiably crazy person wandering the streets, lacking even the sense to get in out of the rain. Good thing she didn't know where I live.

I continued my journey around half of the block, cutting back down the alley and returning through the back door of my apartment building. By the time I reached it, I could barely feel any more misty drops on my skin. There were still dry patches of sidewalk beneath even the small trees. Half an hour after the last raindrop fell, you can barely tell any came down at all.

Still, not a bad sprinkle for Colorado. I bet the entire shower must have lasted like 4, maybe even 5 minutes, though. Good stuff. Good stuff.