And Then Suddenly... MONSOON

Did you know that when a dog shakes water off themselves, the water starts peeling away from the head first and works its way down to the tail?

If you are in just the right spot when that happens, once in a very rare while, you may see a rainbow.

Even more rarely, it can happen before sunrise.

If the first thing you are aware of is the rain on the shutters and open your eyes and see that it is 4:45AM, you are probably going to be wet.

Even if you check the radar, you're probably going to still get wet.

You see that is how my day started, in a nutshell.

The rain woke me up, and that's normal.  After all, it is Florida.  It is the Wet Season.  I am two miles away from the Ocean.

What wasn't normal is that I sleep with earplugs.  Can't hear a bloody thing.  Ok, yeah I can, but it's all muted.  Makes for a nice quiet sleep though.  That is until the rains start, then all bets are off.

So reach for the phone and check in on radar.  Oh great, there's a gap in the storms that will happen in about an hour.

Cat nap.

Managed to get the dog fed and out the door for the beginning of the walk.  The umbrella still works, the one that I've had since the 1980s when I worked in Center City Philadelphia and there was a front coming through that one day.  Suburban Station had a gritty quality about it, but it was always crowded and sometimes you can find some things you REALLY need while waiting for the R8 Chestnut Hill West to come in.

I had managed to get as far away from home as we were going to get.   There was absolutely no traffic on the road, so we began to cross Wilton Drive.

Right in the middle of the Drive, like a light switch, the rain began.   There is a Behind The Scenes video of the old Gene Kelly movie "Singing in the Rain" where you see them simply turn on the rain.

That was what we saw.

Rack actually looked up at me as if to say "Are You Nuts".



That was when he started walking faster.  He did enjoy the rain, it was a more of a prance than a walk, but we moved as quickly as possible.

Both were drenched by the end of the block.

Head to toe, even under the umbrella.   Take a fire hose and turn it on.

At that point, just as quickly, the rain turned down from "eleven" to zero.   It stopped.

Standing just at the right spot, Rack began to shake.  The water flew off his fur in spirals.  That was when the light of the street lights caught my eye and I noticed that there was actually a rainbow from water catching the reflections.

Not content to allow us to enjoy this spectacle, the celestial rain director decided to mess with us again.   Monsoon.

Onward and upward.   We were nearing the house.

Of course this would be the time for the next gap in the storm.   Sure, lets have a surreal wet season.  Either feast or ramen.  Just in time to get to the house, the rain faded to nothing again as if with a light switch.

Sure enough, the rainbow happened again with a vigorous shake on the driveway.  Rack doesn't really seem to mind the weather.  His main joy in life is to get out and bound around in the walk. 

So if you're going to be sodden, at least look for the rainbows.  May as well, the dog will, and it's going to rain whether you want it to or not.