The Puddle Parade

We are having typical Texas weather this week: if you don't like what's up in the sky or falling down from it, just wait a few minutes and you will see something different. We are also having a cold snap, to quote one of the more sarcastic weathermen-- the temperature has dropped from 103 to 87 in the last day or so. (Oh my.... let me get my sweater.)

The Houston area is being hit left and right with thunderstorms this week. One minute, the sun will be broiling hot and you need your sunglasses to go out and get the mail, but if you stay too long talking to the mailman, you'll be drenched in a downpour that sounds like a freight train rumbling across Highway 3 on loose tracks.

The rain comes smack in the middle of the day... and damn those weathermen for interrupting Oprah to tell us It's raining in the 610 Loop, folks, so have y'all's umbrelellas handy! -- and that's not a typo... that's how some people here say the word umbrella. Then the Powers That Be on Channel 2 will show a video of all the cars getting stuck in thigh-high water in the streets of downtown Houston--- the very same streets that get flooded each and every time the sky opens up. (Can they just send all of that video to Mayor White, and leave the rest of us alone?)

The rainstorms will also surprise us in the middle of the night, around three o'clock in the morning when the cats are sound asleep on the screen porch till that first thunderbolt lights up the sky. A split second later, Mickey Kitty is screaming his little meowing-lungs out, begging to be let into the house. I can't open the door fast enough for him, no matter how quickly I get out of bed and stumble to the breakfast room, hoping that I don't fall over Gracie along the way. (We need to have a light-up collar for that dog... a mostly black dog sleeping in a dark house must be a fire hazard or something.) As soon as I open the door a crack, Mickey Kitty is up against it, pushing it with his front paws-- I have to take a quick step backwards so the door doesn't smash me in the knees, all the while trying to be careful not to step on that little cat.

Of course, if you let in one cat, you can't keep the other two out there in the thunder, with the rain making all that racket on the roof of the screen-porch. So in comes ShadowBaby (which now, along with Mickey Kitty and Gracie) makes three black pets in the middle of a dark house. Three ways to kill yourself as you navigate around the house while you're still half-asleep.

AngelBoy comes in as well.... he's afraid of thunder, afraid of the rain..... and I'm always afraid that he's going to find a spot in the house that doesn't have a litter box in it. So into the laundry room he goes-- the "time out room" for naughty pets.

By the time all this happens, Gracie is awake and is standing by the front door with those eyes that say "Please, please let me go outside on the grass." So out we go--- I have to go with her, to make sure she doesn't chase after a raccoon while she's out there. When we come in, after the jolt of rain-soaked air and the sounds of 187 happy frogs, Gracie goes back to sleep but I am wide awake and the cats are meowing because they think their morning has begun and they're looking for their can of Fancy Feast.

And this same story gets repeated every time we have thunder and rainstorms, and my nights become sleep-deprived. When the day breaks, I can see the same three low spots in the backyard are filled up with water so it looks like we have three small ponds out there. One of these days, I'm going to buy that plastic bags of small yellow bath ducks that they sell in the Dollar Store.... and when it rains, I'm going to go out in the yard and release the flock so they can smile ridiculously with their little orange beaks.

As for the Puddle Parade..... I look forward to our down-the-street neighbor and their three young ones, who just love the rainstorms because the part of the street nearest to the curb gets filled with water when the rain falls faster than it can flow down into the drainage ditches. Out the three children will come, with either their mother or their father--- each child is wearing high rubber boots, each one holding a colorful umbrella (the littlest one has an umbrella shaped like the head of a penguin). They begin their parade down at their end of our cul de sac, sloshing and splashing and laughing and giggling as they make their way towards the corner, not caring a bit that their clothes are getting splattered with both the rain and the puddle water, not caring that their hair is getting soaked because they're laughing so hard they can't hold the umbrellas straight up.

The best part--- neither one of their parents care that the kids are getting wet, and neither parent thinks that this Puddle Parade is a waste of time. Those kids are now about six, three, and two years old. They will probably remember their walks through these puddles for the rest of their lives. And maybe that's really the best part.