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Rain RantJune 24, 2006 Around 1:30 this morning: huge crackling BOOM. Amazing how I can get up in the middle of the night, stumble through the dark, and unplug Morgana IV without knocking anything over. Rhodry, who hates booms of any sort, took refuge at the foot of the stairs, the nearest thing we've got to a basement; a curled-up Malamutt fits quite cozily down there, nestled among my various pairs of well-used boots for every occasion. Coziness is Rhodry's best defense against boom-booms, but he'd still much rather the boom-booms go away. Which at 12:40 p.m. they haven't. We just made a foray up State Road to pick up a check for a two-day horse-sit, cash check, get mail, and maybe go watch Ginny ride in a Shannon Dueck clinic at Netherfield Farm. Well. The traffic coming into town was ridiculous. High on any year-rounder's list of summer survival skills is "Save your down-island errands for a good beach day." Reasoning: On a good beach day a significant percentage of the summer people are at the beach and not crawling around town in their SUVs. Today was not a good beach day. There are no good beach days in the forecast through next Friday (so far Weather Underground isn't hazarding any guesses beyond that), plus it's Saturday -- Saturday seems to mean "day off" even to people who've got the whole week or month or summer off, and they all feel duty-bound to get out there and have fun. Like clogging the main road into Vineyard Haven. Traffic heading into town was backed up to Cronig's supermarket. Fortunately I was heading out of town, but I still had to negotiate the left turn from the Edgartown Road into State Road. No sooner had I arrived at the head of the line than some doofus in a black sedan moved into the intersection never mind she couldn't get all the way through it because the cars weren't moving. Back in the Pleistocene when I took my driver's test there was a rule against this. I bet there still is. Either Doofus's eyesight wasn't good enough to see the motionless Toyota Highlander on the far side of the intersection or her cell phone conversation was just too interesting. I forced Uhura Mazda's nose into the breach before someone else got the same stupid idea; the down-island-bound driver signaled for a right turn, the up-island-bound driver flashed me through, and I went. I picked up my check and continued up-island, having blown whatever chance I had to make it to the bank before it closed at noon. The rain segued from hard to torrential -- even the high-speed wipers couldn't keep up, and even at 25 mph Uhura kicked up a few wakes that rose higher than her roof. Visibility was lousy but dontcha know a few drivers didn't have their headlights on. Can't remember if that was in the driver's test way back when I took it -- I think not -- but one likes to believe that most motorists are smart enough to realize that in rainy or foggy conditions the first (and sometimes the only) thing you see on an oncoming car is the headlights? One can't always believe what one likes to believe. When one persists in the face of too much contrary evidence, it's called "denial." No comment about the rivers of rainwater running down State Road . . . The mail in my box wasn't worth the drive (no checks, in other words) and after consultation with my navigator I aborted the drive to Netherfield. Ginny's riding again tomorrow. Maybe the rain will stop, or maybe I will borrow a kayak.
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