Lovely Rain

At last, the real thing.  This morning, the first sound to reach my ears was that of water gurgling down the rain spout outside the bedroom window (I checked the water glass anyway, even though no cats were even in the room -- I wasn't going to let my heart get broken two days in a row). I knelt on the pillow to crack open the high window above the bed and take a look.  It's a steady, working sort of rain -- nothing extravagant or over the top, but decent.  If this keeps up for a few days, the ground will become saturated and we'll finally get some runoff from the hills and the pond level will slowly rise.  However, if we can also manage to get a couple of more intense rain cells overhead to dump down on us, that will really get the pond-filling party going. 

Today is my regular three-month checkup with the surgeon who treated my cancer three years ago.  It's become the tradition that Bruce and I go up to Sacramento together for this and give it the whole day (I had to stay at school until very late yesterday in order to write detailed sub plans for today's substitute -- but it was worth it).  While we're up there, we celebrate the fact that somehow, miraculously, everything from that nightmare time turned out well.  Neither one of us will ever take that for granted. 

We don't go to an expensive restaurant or anything like that -- it's just a day of being together and enjoying each other's company.  Today's festivities include a proposed trip to Ikea where we'll wander around looking at stuff and then have lunch on the second floor.  There's a great view of the parking lot from the window tables.  Over lunch, I like to take pictures of our car from there with my iPhone and send them to daughter Becky.  It's difficult to explain why teasing her with dumb pictures of my boring day is so enjoyable -- I suppose it's just that I'm so glad that I'm still around to laugh and do silly things exactly like this with the people I love.