Doggone Rain

Our neighborhood is organized into long rectangular boxes, with 15 houses on each long side of the rectangle, backyard to backyard, two houses wide. For “the walk” we take each evening, we go up to the cross-street, turn left, walk down three sets of the shortest side of the rectangle, then up one of the long sides, across three short sides, and back down the long side to our house. It’s about a 15-minute walk, but we take a brisk approach to the walk and make it count.

Yesterday, when I put the harnesses and the leashes on and then opened the garage door, I could see a storm front across the freeway (to my south) that appeared to be heading northwest toward Banning/Beaumont. There was some lightning and thunder, but nothing to worry about as it wasn’t headed in our direction. The dogs and I made it across the three short-side blocks and up one of the long sides before the first rain drop fell. Still not concerned, we headed down the three short-side blocks toward our street, but by the time we got that far, the heavens opened up and drenched us.

There was lightning everywhere, thunder booming enough to shake the streets, and more rain than we’ve seen in a year.

I hurried the dogs along, but Cinnamon, the baby, was terrified. She was both trembling and whining, and sat down on the pavement and refused to move. I tried to get her moving but that was not going to happen, so I picked her up and resumed jogging toward home.

The rain never let up and the lightning was ferocious, but we kept moving. I tried putting Cinnamon down once, but she simply would not move, so I had to pick her up again and keep jogging toward home. One neighbor, who sees us each evening, offered to let me come into his garage to wait out the storm, but we were already so wet that it was just as smart to keep moving. Farther down the street, another neighbor offered an umbrella, but I was carrying one dog and holding onto the leash of the other, so there was no way to add an umbrella to the scenario.

Of course we made it home, soaked to the skin and shaking from the cold. We dried off and curled up on the couch to cuddle as the storm stayed overhead for a good 45 minutes. At one point, I thought a lightning strike had hit in my front yard as there was a brilliant light and then a resounding boom! of the thunder, which shook my house. I’ve looked and there is no burn spot, but it was darned close.

Rain has continued throughout the Valley, but we haven't had any since the downpour we were caught in the middle of. It's so dry from the lack of moisture that I wish we'd have more rain, but it's going along the mountains and causing a lot of mudslide issues due to the recent wildfires. It never rains but what it pours -- in the places that need it the least.