"I used to sit and watch the pouring rain..."

Off and on for the last few weeks, a very troubling thought would randomly pop into my mind. I missed the rain. I've lived half my life in places where it rained almost every day like clockwork. Since moving out to California, however, the number of days it has rained while I've lived here wouldn't fill a year. That's what I get for living in a sub-saharan climate.

The lack of rain has really bothered me recently. I've been trying to remember the last time it really rained down here. I figured it out today. I think it was right after the Witch Creek Fire last October, when Pendleton burned all the way to the 5 freeway. A week or two after the firefighters got that fire under control, it rained for a day or two. Maybe more, I can't remember. But once the ash soaked into the ground, and after a few weeks of sunshine, Pendleton was once more covered in green.

The subject of rain came up last night too. I was describing how much I missed thick, heavy drops of rain splatting on the ground. I missed a good solid day of heavy rain, the kind that soaks everything. The kind that stays in the ground for days, and when you look around, you can see all the plants looking greener and perkier for all the water their roots are sucking up.

So, you can imagine my astonishment when I arrived at the architecture studio this morning, and saw first one, then two, then several drops hitting my windshield. The sun was coming up spectacularily over the hills, and there were large scattered towers of clouds all over the sky. You could see the rain in some of them. Not dark with menace, just heavy with potential. And as the towers swept across the morning sky, there were rumbles of thunder, and sweeps of beautiful, heavy rain coming down.

By afternoon the traces of rain were almost gone, but you can still see puddles here and there. And as the rain came down this morning, and I stood in it, letting it soak my hair and my shoulders, I just had to thank God for hearing our wishes, and today making mine come true.

Cheers!

students

As I sit here, watching seventh graders messing around, pretending to do the assignment I gave them, I can't help at wonder what some of them will be like in a few years. Some of the 7th and 8th graders I meet are very tall, getting their adult growth in. When they go off to High School, they have a semblance of adulthood. Others can look forward to looking young and out of place when they reach the 9th grade.

But that's not entirely what I mean when I wonder what they will be like. A handful of students that I have met in these grades have very mature senses of humor. Others are very good at imitating the adults in their lives. You can almost predict what their parents are like from the way they act.

After teaching for a couple of years, I can see the way people probably were when they were in these grades. The ones who changed the most, usually the introverts who develop into mild extroverts are most often the ones worth knowing. However, every personality, every character has its own charm, and as I look around me and see the way these kids express themselves, I dearly wish that I could see into their futures. I wish I could see what they will become.

Californian to Dana Point

I wasn't back two weeks from the Festival of Sail in Los Angeles when I found myself going sailing again. I have to be honest here; the reason why I never sail on the Californian is because I've always been terrified of the skipper who is most often her captain. He's a very tough guy who never smiles, and there are all sorts of stories about him chewing people out because they didn't know what they were doing.

So when I saw the list for the trip to Dana Point on the Californian, I was very excited to see that the skipper of the Surprise as Captain and one of the really nice guys who've been around for years as the mate, I was happy to volunteer to sail up and back. It was a great weekend. The sailing was marvelous, especially on Saturday, when we had wind that let us go up to 8 or so knots.

We left SD on Friday morning around 3:30am, and being on the first watch, I had the good fortune to watch the sun come up behind La Jolla. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen. Later in the day we saw dolphins, a sunfish, and three Fin whales played and fished nearby, completely unconcerned by our ship. We even had an apparently exhausted seagull who, after trying several uncomfortable landing sites on the ship, finally settled on the still-furled inner jib. We tried chasing him away by throwing pancakes at him, which he ate, and then the heaving line. This bothered him, but did not persuade him to leave permanently. Oh well. He stayed till he'd had his fill of the sun and relaxation, then left.

Once we reached Dana Point, we picked up passengers and headed back out for the afternoon's Parade into the harbor. Once that was through, and we'd rafted the ship to the others in the harbor, we ate and slept. The next two days consisted of opening all the ships up to the public from 10 to 4, at which time we all loaded up with passengers and headed out for afternoon gun battles. Six ships participated in this: The Californian, the Spirit of Dana Point, the Lynx, the American Pride, and the Exy Johnson and Irving Johnson.

The best moment of the two days of gun battles was on the first afternoon, when the Exy and the Irving came down on us together. We went between them going the opposite direction. What they didn't know was that unlike most of our engagements, we had two gunners on baord that day. So when they came up on us, we fired both broadsides at the same time. It was beautiful. The most talked about moment of the weekend.

Being such a full weekend, with so much that happened, I'll continue this in a second post, with pictures too. Cheers!