Anticipation ...

A glimpse into Wren’s mind as she learns there’s a good chance of rain and, possibly, snow during the upcoming week-end:

OMG! I’ve got to get ready! I should make a list! Snow! I need to cart enough firewood in to last a few days and nights, at least, and I need to find the ice-melter stuff and put it just outside the door, close at hand. I need to make soup and keep it simmering on the back of the stove just in case we get weary, snow-clotted, half-frozen travelers at the door. What kind would be best? Potato? Beefy vegetable? Chicken? Maybe all three. I’ll get started today. And I should probably make bread, you know? (I don’t know how, but I know I can learn between now and Friday evening.) I need to stock up on storm candles and make sure I have enough coffee and soy creamer to get me through the coldest hours. Hot cocoa! I’ll need some milk to make that. Forget the marshmallows, I’ll just add a dollop of whisky. And there’s all that whipped cream leftover from Thanksgiving. YES! OMG snow! I should probably toss those four, 25-pound sacks of cat litter back into the trunk of the Celica. That’s just in case I’m forced to try to go somewhere during the storm, like in an emergency or something. And I’d best park that dumb little muscle car up on the street or I’ll be stranded, stuck at the bottom of our steep hill as the snow and ice grows deeper and deeper and the wind whistles through the eaves …

Yes, this is a fantasy. The National Weather Service is warning of much colder temperatures, rain and possible snow, but I’ve lived here long enough now to know that the NWS is sort of like an excitable old auntie who thrives on crises, real or otherwise.

Still, I can’t help but to be pleased by this news, which was waiting for me on my Yahoo homepage when I got up this morning. You must understand – the last real weather I saw was back in February, folks. It snowed then, off and on for a week or so, and I was in absolute heaven. Then it stopped. The sun came back out. The snow melted.

Since then, it has rained maybe three times. The longest rainy period lasted a day and a half.

I am longing with every fiber of my being for gray skies, rain, wind, sleet, hail, and snow. I want that nasty weather to come and stay for the winter, like it’s supposed to. California is facing a serious drought and we need the snow desperately so the reservoirs will fill with water come spring. The whole state is dry as a tinderbox.

And those of us who thrive on interesting weather, which includes just about anything except the daily, dull blandness of clear skies, season after season, are just about to jump out of our skins.

Cold, yes! Rain, yes! Snow, YES! What a perfect early Christmas gift. I hope this first real cold front of the season brings a whole series of storms, real storms, all the way through April. Rain and snow. Come on, Old Man Winter! Get those silly Californian weather-haters complaining loudly, bemoaning the gray skies. Make them really appreciate summer when it comes.

That would be … fahhhhbulous, dahling. Just fahhhbulous.

Note: The photo is of the snow outside my kitchen window back in January of 2007. That snowy period lasted roughly two weeks. Then the sun came out again and stayed until February 2008. Sigh.