Rain, Cattle and Creosote

Rain!  Glorious Rain!  I was beginning to think we'd never see it again.  I can almost hear my lawn sighing with relief. 

Utter downpour today, and so welcome.  Whatever Christian or Pagan gods you worship, thank them for me.  From the bottom of my dry little roots, I am grateful for the rain.

The downpour did make driving to and from my aunt's house something of an adventure, but it didn't matter... it was RAIN. 

Easter.  I'm not a big fan of easter.  I'm sure I've mentioned that before.  I love my family and enjoy other holidays when we all get together.  I have no idea why I'm biased against Easter.  But it's something of a chore.  I have always considered opting out.  But my mother would be quite put out with me, and really there's no good reason for it, so I go. 

It's one of the few times during the year that I see my grandmothers.  I hereby vow to make an effort to see them more.  Each time I do see them, they hug me tight and tell me they think of me often, and I believe that they do.  So I told them each that I will call them next week and set a date to have each of them over individually.  I don't know why I haven't.  Inertia, I suppose.  Laziness?  Maybe that's closer to the mark.

But I'll remedy that.  I will. 

In the meantime... it has rained virtually all day.  I would love for it to continue to rain all night. What's better than sleeping through a rainstorm? When I was a kid, we spent a lot of weekends at my uncle's farm in St. Louis, Oklahoma.  I slept upstairs, at one end of a long room that ran the length of the cabin, next to a window.  The roof met in a peak overhead, and though the entire interior roof was finished in cedar shingles, the outer roof was corrugated tin.  The rain was wonderful up there.  Particularly when you could open the window and smell the air-- cow manure and grass and creosote and sun-heated dust and rain.  It's a combination that says Oklahoma to me.

At night I would lay in my bed with the window open and listen to coyotes howling, or the low drumming of the oilwell pumps scattered around the property.  In the morning it was cows lowing and birdsong.  If I could bottle and sell the sense of peace and well being those smells and sounds imparted, I'd be a wildly wealthy woman.