There hasn't been any more rain to speak of since late Friday evening, but it's still overcast and chilly. Clouds will keep hanging around, but Tuesday is supposed to be mostly sunny. The next chance of rain will be Thursday, which will be New Year's Eve Day. After that there is a chance of rain, well, every damned day for the rest of the long range forecast. I hope at least some of that rain is transformed into snow in the mountains. I'm sure we'll need lots of water next summer to pour on all the fires.
It seems likely I'll be ending the year in a dismal mood, but I've been looking around for things to cheer me up, though with little luck so far. Maybe this will help:
Sunday Verse
Everything Is Beautiful from a Distance, and So are You
by Michael Blumenthal
The young clarinetist, playing Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia #10 in B-minor
in back of the orchestra may be exceedingly beautiful, it’s hard to know
from here, just as I, to her, may be gorgeous myself and the day, in
retrospect, divine, as all the past loves of my life have been, and that boring
evening in County Derry as well, oh yes, they are all beautiful, now, when
I look back upon them, as, no doubt, my life will seem from some calm
and beautiful distance, some rapturous perspective, but here in the here
and now let me say that it’s midafternoon, my lover is on her way over,
it’s been a long chilly day in Budapest, what I thought was a herniated disc
is not, after all, a herniated disc, Mozart’s 250th is behind us, as is the 60th
anniversary of Bartók’s death, and it is only James Taylor on the stereo—
sweet, sentimental James—and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks
of my taste or emotional proclivities, I only know it’s Thursday and in
an hour I’ll be making love, and, looking up at me from the pillow,
my lover may or may not consider me beautiful, or even desirable,
but the deed will be already done, the evening before us, there
are roasted red peppers and goat cheese in the refrigerator, I’ll be
as far from death as a man can be, oh can you imagine that?