Rain in Phoenix? You've got to be kidding!

It's 4:30 in the morning here and its raining. Actually, its 4:37 in the morning-thanks to the new digital clock I got for the new side table that is so bright, one can see it from space. Its raining AND thundering with bright flashes of lightening or as we call it in this house 'Mr. Lightening.' A carry over from when the kids were, well, kids. I'm up writing about it because I am living in a city that breaks in on their television programing to alert the people to the fact that the stuff falling from the sky is, in fact, rain.

Its a good one too. Washed out the curbs and filled the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. On days like this when I was a kid, I would take my carrier fleet of 2x4's with smaller chunks nailed with 8 penny nails to its deck simulating radar and comm antennas and float them down the street. Mom would give up telling me something I already knew, that my black high-top Converse All Stars were soaking wet. They were suppose to get wet. You can't launch a carrier without getting into the bay-Geez mom!

I got up and turned the coffee on and took the girls outside. Betty, of course, was halfway across the street, oblivious to the water. Mindy, on the other hand, didn't want to get her feet any wetter than she had to. She stood under the eaves and watched her adopted companion. I wanted to rip my clothes off and run naked (wearing proper foot wear of course) down the street while holding my coffee cup yelling for everyone to get up and come outside and enjoy what I was enjoying. I didn't. The sun was starting to produce enough light where I could be recognized.

Funny thing about rain. It is a mood enhancer. You can go either way with that. If you live on the Olympic Peninsula, rain could cause depression because you get so much of it. Here in Phoenix its the opposite. It causes people to do things they wouldn't normally do. Like-

• Go to morning mass. The real early one.


• Go to Pottery Barn and buy some wind charms.


• Think about eating healthier-including the idea of more tofu in their diet.


• Not dwell on, at least for today, about the neighbor's cat using your feng shui garden in your back yard as a toilet.


• Think about putting in a feng-shui garden.


• Looking up in Wikipedia what the hell a feng-shui garden is.

Nope, rain in Arizona is like a drug to us here. As I sit here and look out the window, everything seems to be in its place. The world's problems, for just one brief moment in time, all seem to be at peace. In a little while, we will be back into the fray, but for right now, right this very moment, well, lets just say that this old man thinks he can get to the end of the street and back without anyone seeing me with my 2x4 and a half dozen nails.