In an unrelated note: happy birthday to my sister!

There's an honest-to-goodness thunderstorm raging mostly outside my window. There's the flashing and clapping and dripping and whooshing. I should close my widow but then I banish that scent. That glorious mixture of laundry hung drying and all the town's dust being gathered together and splattered back down on the pavement where it belongs. And the sounds. The usual percussion of stilettos getting caught between the bricks quickened some time ago to a panicked pace, and has now died away altogether making way for the gentler sound of my FLOOR GETTING WET... excuse me while I go protect my hardwood floor and easy chair.
To resume. These are the days I love. The green has been sprouting for weeks now, and the winds have already blown the stinkyblossoms from many of the trees. We are thick into spring with all the moodiness April promises. Last Saturday I didn't bronze so much as rubied (which I realize is no proper verb) my shoulders and am still paying the painful price for my lack of sunscreen, yet it is an evening for Galoshes even by Oregonian standards. Which brings my to the bragging point of this entire post; after several years of ooohing and drooling, I finally bought myself a pair of very bright yellow Wellingtons. With a blue buckle on the side and my pants tucked into the tops, I find myself again at age four eagerly timing my steps for a pounce into the biggest of puddles. It is moments such as this when the best I would wish the world is a "pair of yelli wellies and a puddle to use them in."

...of rain

It has been months since I last visited what is quickly becoming my beloved Bremen, but today was the day for it. These January days are, to my mind, best used to travel. So long as the conveyance is closed and can boast a functioning heating system. After the normal greet and coffee drinking that characterizes the close of all the church services I have encountered here in Germany, I tossed my pack onto one of my shoulders and marched practically across the street from my church into the train station. Then it was off to Bremen. There is always this quick moment of panic as the conductor approaches to confirm my fare. I have no idea why, because free weekend rides to Bremen are one of the bonus features of my year long bus ticket, and I pat myself down multiple times on the way to both the bus stop and the train station every time; still those posted warnings about the illegality of riding without a ticket seem to have seeped into my innermost thoughts emerging to toy with my anxiety at will. Despite that moment of trepidity, I spent 40 pleasant minutes on the train and disembarked to find (na Klar!) that it was raining at my destination. To correctly understand the air of resignation I then forced upon myself, you must first understand my relationship to rain. It is of the polar persuasion. Born in the high desert, I grew up being more familiar with cacti and dry, cracked knuckles than synonyms for precipitation. On those delightful evenings when it actually rained it worked to make up in enthusiasm whatever was lost by its prolonged absence. When it stormed we got the whole show: lights and drums. At eighteen, when I moved to Oregon, my understanding of rain was quite altered. The rain started around September and didn't let up until June. It is the sort of rain that must have inspired Chinese Water Torture. I endure this sort of rain primarily by reminding myself that it is the source of the incredible green I am dazzled by throughout the year, but most especially spanning the entire summer. Without that constant reminder, and the frequent application of warm beverages to my internal organs, there is only a fraction of a possibility that I would have lived in Oregon as long as I have. Ironically, the area of Germany in which I find myself has precisely the same weather pattern found in the Willamette Valley with the increased discomfort of a slight general drop, and an increase in windiness in temperature. All of that is to say that it was raining in Bremen. Still, I acquired and partook of the aforementioned hot liquid, sat with my books and unfinished letters, and spend a delightful afternoon in the town next door. At the termination of my visit to Bremen I had another peaceful (although delayed ten minutes by an accident on the rail) train ride home where I now sit in a cozy corner writing a long-overdue blog, which I now close with the wish that you may soon find a moment of weather most particularly suited to your tastes or the ability to endure that which is instead set before you.

Yep

The rain pants work.

Why do I always move to places where it rains most of the time?

It has turned cold. Not that the half of the summer I experienced here was anywhere near what I would consider hot, but there is that definite change in the attitude of the weather which signals Autumn. Officially, the season starts in three days, but Germany lives up to its reputation of punctuality a little over enthusiastically sometimes. This morning after class I went and bought myself a pair of rain pants. Kinda. They're really just waterproof hiking pants, and they won't fit over any of my other pants very well, but I am determined to make due. Three days a week I roll out of bed and bike the eight or so kilometers to language school. Often this is a precious piece of my day when it is just me, fresh air, good music, and very tired limbs trying to wake up enough to get me to class on time. But on those days when it rains... Last week I came into class fairly soaked and quite cold. After that day I acquired a rain jacket. Then I realized I could really use some gloves: so I got myself a pair. Today it rained again so I bit the bullet and purchased the rain pants. As I am sure it will rain again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, I am sure that I will have ample opportunity to test them. My hope is that they exceed all expectations particularly since I have a slightly vicious sore throat which attacked me this morning that I am hope to shake off as soon as possible, and have no wish to add to its company and brand of runny nose, or sneezing or any other of the seasonal illnesses.