Stormy Weather

If you are a lover of storms, please stop reading now because I don't want to hear some well meaning but misdirected comment about how storms are so neat and people should love getting rained on and all that. I am a desert lover. It speaks to me. I love being able to look far and vast. I love how the desert is so quiet that silence makes a sound, and when you hold still for a long time, you see it come to life around you. I love sand and warmth and cute lizardy things. Those are things that I love.

These are things that I don't love: I don't love walking on a cold night, rain plummeting down and starting to seep through my supposedly water resistant clothing. I do not like things clinging to me. Wet clothes cling. This is bad. If I wanted to dress in cling wrap, I would do so. And speaking of clothes, I don't like having to put on a zillion layers of clothes just to take a simple walk.

I also don't like coming home and having my recently skunked dog waft his residual smell around because his fur is wet. Nor do I like cleaning the kitchen floor every single day of my life because there are fresh, muddy paw prints across it.

I don't like how dampness makes things stick to me. Suddenly I am a magnet for dog fur, for clothing lint, for my own loose hairs, for bits of moss or mud or some sodden leaf that I happened to come in contact with. And wet feet. Not a fan of that either.

Yes, I know the northwest is green and beautiful and lush and blah blah blah. And yes, I know this is all because of rain. I also know that I have lived here long enough to earn the right to complain. So there.