Smells like fresh dirt.

There was just no way I was going to go to work today.

I've been teaching a drug class for the last couple of weeks in the evenings. I've been busy with some other things as well and we had a fairly harried weekend this past week with no real down time. If there are not significant portions of my weekend bereft of any sort of planned or necessary activity, I ain't happy. So, those were my excuses.

In reality, I just have a huge case of spring fever and when I heard the weather report that there was a chance of rain today - actual water falling from the sky! - I just couldn't stand the thought of watching it huddled under the awning outside the front doors of our office.

I finished up my class Tuesday night and sat at my desk trying to call the people I have scheduled for today. Most of them haven't paid a phone bill anytime in recent memory, so I had to leave appointment cards for them with the secretary. Then I filled out a leave request and dropped it in the boss' mailbox, turned out the lights and went home.

If you ever happen to be in Fake Cow on a rainy day - easier said than done, I assure you - then drive by my office and wave. You'll usually find me, Princess Mindy, occasionally M2 and Ester and whomever else we can drag out there, standing outside the door, sniffing the wet air like bloodhounds and generally trying to stop ourselves from dancing down the street in the most offensively untalented Gene Kelly impersonation of all time.

So, I rolled out of bed this morning, brushed my teeth, grabbed a robe and brewed some tea. I gathered up the accoutrements of blissful relaxation and stumbled my way out onto the back porch. It was foggy! Fog makes me happy. I sniffed the air like a bloodhound and settled down to drink my tea.

My next door neighbor evidently had the same idea. We studiously ignored each other, because neither of us wanted to go inside and actually change into clothes, evidently. He's a fairly new neighbor, but if he's willing to sit out here in his pyjamas and enjoy the view without acknowledging my presence or expecting any such acknowledgment in return, then he's ok by me.

So, here I sit, listening to the cars on the highway, a mile or so away as the crow flies. The sound is always magnified by the fog. I'm waiting for the train. It should be by here any minute. It runs along the highway, just far away enough to be heard in the quiet dark of the night or a grey day like this. I love trains. Distant ones.

Carl Sandburg's Fog - you remember? The poem about 'little cat feet'? - runs through my head. The dog is sitting quietly next to my chair, like some sort of Normal Rockwelleian accessory. My tea stays toasty in it's little pot. I watch birds dance for each other on the sparse bits of grass that are finally beginning to green. I marvel that it's eight a.m and still the sunlight is dimmed enough that the security light in the alley stays lit.

It's all good.

And then a bird crapped on my laptop!