The weather matches my mood

Dark and dreary.

But I do like the rain. I always have. I like thunderstorms. Not severe storms. Not tornadoes. I didn't say that. I like thunderstorms.

I was a child in the 60's...back when as long as you were not standing in the rain or near metal, then you were considered "safe" from the lightning. Nowadays when there is lightning miles away, we get an announcement on the emergency warning system at work that "lightning has developed within ten miles of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Employees conducting outside activities should move inside at once." I was either lucky or, more likely, very blessed. I used to go sit on the porch and watch and listen during a storm. Now, I wasn't entirely stupid. If the lightning was right overhead, then I didn't sit outside. But I liked to watch the storm and listen to the rain and thunder. Before "environmental effects" CDs were popular for relaxing, I discovered the calm that the gentle rumble of thunder and patter of rain can bring. It was especially great to be able to see a storm moving in, to see it off on the horizon with the bolts dancing between clouds and then skipping to the ground. And it was even better at night. Nothing was more relaxing than to climb into bed and watch a storm roll in and then go to sleep by the soundtrack of a "good" storm...a good sleep storm, not a rabid, angry one that rattled the windows.

We had the other kind in the wee hours of this morning. I was sleeping peacefully when the thunder nearly rolled me out of bed. Not the worst way to wake up, but not the best way. Unfortunately it startled me so much that I was unable to get back to sleep, with about an hour left before the alarm went off.

But the gentle rain patters outside the window right now. Unfortunately I cannot hear it because of the well insulated building I work in with the ventilation system that makes its own brand of noise...not the pleasant type. However, when I go for coffee, as I just did, it's nice to pause at the window and watch the drops splatter in the little pools of water. It's as if a fairy has touched down in the pool, startling the calm surface, before she leaps away to another one to disturb its quiet too. As the rain falls the fairies dance and the thunder gently calls to them. And it seems, for the moment at least, as if all is right with the world.