Rain Walk

Well, the question of the moment is whether whoever controls the weather is also reading my blog.

Good reason to think so. I wrote about cold and wet yesterday, and what do we have?

Right.

So what to do? It certainly wasn’t torrential, nor was it a drizzle. Just a fairly respectable rain. So—do the trot and get wet or stay inside and funk….

Well, I decided to challenge the depression mindset—a fancy way of saying that I’ve been saying “I can’t do that because (insert excuse here)” 90, 000 times a day for the last forty years. What do I hate about rain?

Water on my face. Damp clothes are no problem—on sunny days, they’ll be drenched with sweat in seconds, anyway. And I don’t mind wet feet, as long as it’s not cold wet feet.

So that led logically to the question—umbrella? Poncho? Hat. And we have two—an Australian sheep farmer’s affair and a genuine Panama hat made in Ecuador. In fact, it may be genuine—I remember reading some place that Panama hats are from Ecuador. You have to live in these parts to see the logic of it.

Well, I ask Mr. Fernández—which one to use. He’s yawning in front of the bathroom mirror, where he has stood for the last five minutes looking at his face. The Australian hat, he says. Seems you can’t get Panama / Ecuador hats wet.

It doesn’t rain in Ecuador?

Whatever. Now the question—which side is front? I’m still doing my mindfulness, so I study the hat. There’s a sort of jaunty prow at one end and a rounded bun at the other. I go off to ask Mr. Fernández.

Hah! I was right—it’s the prow (well, that at least is logical) and is there an umbrella.

“I hate umbrellas,” I tell him.

“No, for me.”

“I’ll leave it out.”

“Don’t forget,” he says.

“You know, there are some phrases that assist in the development of a relationship. Others do not. Let’s practice some of the former. Repeat after me.‘Darling, you’re wonderful’”

“Just don’t forget,” he says.

Well, I go off in a swivet and storm out the door and stride down the street and it hits.

OK—do I go back and put out the umbrella or do I let him find it himself.

Well, decide on that and reflect that it’s really very pleasant. Easy on the eyes, is a rainy day, and the colors are different, too. Partly, of course, because my sunglasses are red-tinted, which makes the reds redder and the blues bluer. (Can’t explain about the blues…). And the water on the rocks makes the rocks rockier.

Also fun to hear the little squish sounds when you go through puddles.

Nice, too, not to be hot. And, best, to be all alone—just the sea, the rocks and I, as well, of course, as the 40 foot walls the Spaniards put up to fortify the city. Everyone else has decided to forego exercise on this really lovely morning, since getting wet = monga = 5 days in bed = probable pneumonia = possible death.

Guys—ever hear of London? According to your logic, it should be a ghost town…

So that gives me time to think about what I really want to do—since I no longer have the distraction of seeing incredibly sculpted guys moving horribly-too-fast away from me. I begin to see why Bertrand Russell (or whoever it was) disliked sex so much—it really does limit time for serious thinking.

This blog, I think—it’s now over 100 posts, which is really quite respectacle (duh, computer—use your imagination! What happens when respectable meets a miracle?) I mean, I started it in February, and I have been doing other things—losing my mind, writing a book, ignoring the house, addressing the cats. And everybody gets weekends off. So it’s a body of work. 

Right, since absolutely NOBODY is buying my blook, what about a blear? Will that be the ticket to success? Yeah, gather all the posts thematically—which is to say stick all the Franny posts together, all the music posts together, you-get-the-idea. Put them all together into a blook-that-is-a-blear! A year’s worth of a blog!

Then it hits—just of course as I was getting excited about the idea.

The images that I have freely ripped off the Internet.

Ms. Taí is not gonna let me get away with sticking them in a blear—not without checking permissions. Remember the Blue-crowned motmot?

OK—back to Puerto Rico by Público. 

But what I really want to do, I think, is build a tree house in a bamboo grove. Using, of course, the bamboo to build the tree house. Think of the sound of the bamboo rustling gently, lulling you to sleep! Wow! And could you construct it so that the house itself swayed gently? Tremendous idea.

The Japanese would know, I reflect, and probably have done it. Not much they haven’t. So they’ll have written about it.

Though most likely in Japanese.

Well, it was a wonderful walk, and a delightful surprise, as most new things are. Get home, and discover that I may have three more days just like this. The eye of Hurricane Sandy is in the Bahamas.

The tail is in Puerto Rico.

You guys hear me up there?

Hey—guess what!  Someone HAS done it, and no—not the Japanese.  Check this out—google “bamboo tree house Rincón”….)