Tag: rain

Fallin’ for fall

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

When I shop for clothes, I wait till summer. That’s when the fall lines drop, filling catalogs with browns and blacks and blues and grays — my kind of shades.

Already I’ve bought a brown corduroy collar shirt and three sweatshirts of various styles, two in black and one in “midnight,” a charcoal-blue that exudes a singular mystery. Of course it will be two months before I can wear any of it. Still, fall rules. Off with t-shirts, shorts and the stumpy, undignified socks that go with them. And, as the heavens part and angels sing: no flip-flops, or what I call satan’s hooves.

What I really want now in this autumn urge is the pair of black and olive Todd Snyder sneakers I keep eyeballing online. But they are scandalously overpriced and it’s breaking my heart. (Hello, GoFundMe.) I also need a mid-weight coat, since my few jackets hit their expiration dates when “Gilmore Girls” aired on The WB.  

The coat is crucial. I go to London for a week in early November and I basically refuse to wear my nearly moth-eaten Barbour quilted jacket, despite its lingering suavity. It’s old and boring, having completed tours of duty around the world, fighting for my right to party. It’s time for an honorable discharge.

Rain. London can be lousy with it, though November temperatures hover in the 50s, which is my barometrical bag. So I need a coat that’s mid-weight and fairly water-resistant. 

Where I’m at right now it’s 82 degrees and pouring rain — the midsummer soak. It sort of reminds me of the jacket I need. Chances are another Barbour, the classic British brand with James Bondian connotations (see: “Skyfall”). This is especially true since I’ll be in London, the obvious spot to look for a new Barbour, which should be plentiful and cheaper.

Unless we’re talking books, I am no shopaholic. Malls and shopping districts zombify me. I am definitely no clothes horse — more like a clothes donkey, procuring a couple pieces a year and perhaps a pair of sneakers. I read no fashion magazines. I can’t tell Dior from Gucci and don’t care. I peruse three or four online catalogs with more of a glancing interest, pshaw, than sweaty-palmed voracity. 

When I buy something, I try to make it count. Too often, though, I get a shirt, say, and months later it’s in the Salvation Army or Veteran’s pile, worn once or twice with gathering disappointment. And so savvy curation is paramount. Those Todd Snyder sneakers noted above? I have a creeping sensation they wouldn’t work out even if I could justify their pornographic price tag and see for myself. 

Clothes, like most purchases, are a gamble. (Look at the snaking returns line for Amazon products at Whole Foods — capitalistic carnage.) I fiendishly acquire books and, frankly, half are duds or don’t meet the hype. (That’s me, third in line at Whole Foods.)

Coupling is hard. Ask any character in any rom-com, dimples be damned. I think I’m having a tumultuous relationship with the thick, long-sleeve polo shirt I bought last year that’s this close to winding up in the Goodwill racks. We’ve lost that lovin’ feeling. It’s a nice fall shirt that cost a pretty penny, and it’s going cheap. 

Anyone?

Halloween, if little hallowed

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s positively pouring rain, cats, dogs, giraffes, and it is blustery, leaf-dislodging, noisy on multiple levels — water, wind, things blown over, gutters gushing — and it’s kind of great, though going outside seems like unnecessary peril. Thus: homebound. 

The day before Halloween — can you imagine the poor kids and parents braving this mayhem? — yet things look up for the big bloody day. The forecast is sunshine and 60 degrees. Boo-yah! as a ghost might cheer. 

Nowadays the most I do for Halloween is steal fun-size Reese’s from the brimming bowl meant for trick-or-treaters and the parents who steal Reese’s from their children. My Halloween dress-up heyday was when I was Paul Stanley from KISS one year and Gene Simmons from KISS the next. This was during the Reagan Administration, so slack must be cut. Like Marley’s Ghost, I wore metal chains as Simmons. Totally rock. 

Damn, it’s like a monsoon out there now. The skeletons on the lawn probably have hypothermia.

On my last blog post, I hinted that Cubby the dog would go well with some guac and salsa. Well, he’s since got a bath — no longer is his scent eau de tortilla chips — and a haircut. He now looks like Moe from the Three Stooges. He’s spiffy and perfumey and the groomer tied a natty bandanna round his freshly coiffed neck. It’s too late for a photo of the transformation; he’s growing out, the bandanna is gone, and already he’s starting to smell like a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme. 

Mexico City beckons. I leave in a week for seven days. As always before a trip, I’m angsty-excited, a nervous muddle of dread and joy. Like, what if I catch Montezuma’s revenge, or get mugged at the ATM? Flip side, what if the food  (tacos tacos tacos tacos) spirits me to rapture and the locals’ hospitality restores my faith in humanity? I’ll report later on this uncharted adventure. Bet you can’t wait. 

It’s been 20-plus years since I read two ecstatically received literary novels — Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News,” which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and Ian McEwan’s massive seller “Atonement,” considered the prolific British writer’s crown achievement. (I’ve read seven of his novels. He’s spectacular.) 

Now. My response to both books, back then, was: meh. What a child I was. I just finished “The Shipping News,” and its deep-grained, lyrical, downright poetic and funny prose carried me along its often exotic world-scapes and among its colorful characters. It’s a trip, and one worth taking. There are a lot of fish.

With “Atonement,” a high-toned, very English story, I have only begun rereading it and already I’m snared by writing that seems crafted with a laser beam, so specific, rich and dazzling, you want to kill yourself, if you care about these things.

Unfortunately, I do. 

Dog 1, me zero

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

A clank — the neighbor dispensing with wine bottles in the recycling bin. A thick rain falls and wind blusters the trees, making the dog’s ears perk up and eyes go wide. He bristles at the sound of heavy winds, and often pleads to get on my lap if it’s all too much out there. Rustling leaves — Cubby’s nemesis.

Now a jet plane roars above and the local commuter train blows a curt toot, last call for the suit and briefcase brigade. The rain gutters rattle with liquid bloat. For a couple of days, the water extinguishes the August heat. I couldn’t be happier. 

Summer’s almost gone, finished marring, charring the days with high 80s and 90s, sometimes more. Who likes this rot? Most people do, but, as my opinion abides, most people are maniacs. Melanoma. Enjoy.

I detest sweat as well, and shorts are the devil’s attire. But whoosh, the gusts flurry again and now the dog is on my lap, plop, an impossible tableau: dog jostling the laptop computer, making this task either funny or furious. Since it’s the dog, I’ll take the former. 

So now, typing one-handed, I’ll wrap this reverie of sight and sound, a mini-experiment in writing live, as the world unfurls, realizing once again that the damn dog always wins.  

Wet hot American summer

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

And suddenly, a violent cloudburst. It has doused the hot rays of a 90-degree day, literally out of the blue, and hammers rooftops and streets with angry, percussive cascades. It is gray. It is thunderous. It is beautiful.

Windows are being slashed and gutters rush. Steam-genies dance off the sidewalks. The dog is whining and restless, unsettled by the climatic lurch. I calm him and he looks at me with the anxious eyes of Toto when he’s about to be snatched from Dorothy. 

And then, like that, the rain stops and a vengeful fireball shines again and all the fun burns away. Another summer bummer, a Zeusian tease that will come again, probably when I’m walking across town in shorts and a t-shirt, umbrella tucked in my sock drawer.

Already the ice cream truck tools and tootles by and the dog yelps and grumbles. Either he’s being ornery or he really wants a Fudgesicle. The rain has passed, gone. Children chase the ice cream man, splashing puddles along the way.

Summer’s roar and pour

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The sounds of summer: little girls shrieking in the park; the ice cream truck’s old-timey jingle-jangle; the living room fan’s sighing thrum; the glassy clank of the ice dispenser; the dog’s whistling nostrils as he naps to cool off.

Meanwhile, the sky is about to explode. 

Cool Whip clouds froth and darken, snuffing the sun with enveloping shadow. Then: thunder snaps and growls like splitting wood, and plump raindrops slap hard surfaces. 

It’s 90 degrees and, like that, it’s pouring and roaring. The sounds of summer. 

Only an hour ago I was walking in woolly humidity — the kind of goop that makes the small of your back immediately pool with sweat — under partly cloudy skies, typical summer climes on the East Coast. Which means, wear smart shoes and pack an umbrella.

No one cares that it kissed 100 degrees yesterday. Cloudbursts and thunderstorms are coming — have arrived — and while climate change is partly to blame, this is rather normal atmospheric behavior here and now.

I am so happy. Rain douses the heat, and temperatures can drop 20 degrees in less than an hour. Summer, foiled again! Lightning, so dazzling a sight, rakes bleak skies, and thunder makes Wagnerian drama.  

But they’re fickle, these wet, boisterous storms, with fitful, stop-start rhythms. Fooled into thinking one has passed, I jump at the chance to walk the dog.  

It’s hot as hell. The sun blazes — until it doesn’t. Shade suddenly blankets everything. Rumbles and cracks, those sounds of summer, augur trouble.

We get soaked. 

The unexpected pitter-patter of rain on a snoozy Saturday

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Today I walked two miles, to the cafe and back, and on the return journey the skies broke and a steady rain began to fall. Not wearing proper gear, I was lucky enough to have a plastic shopping bag in my backpack, which I hurriedly spread over my head like a hapless vagabond, rain gathering on top of it, overflowing and dripping down my nose.

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This guy’s a pro.

This lasted about 15 minutes, the remainder of my walk. Cars passed. Drivers surely sniggered at the sight. I paid no attention. I was annoyed but contained my annoyance by dint of the bag actually doing its job, for the most part keeping my head dry. My sneakers didn’t fair so well, but they’ll live. No water got inside my shoes, despite a hearty split along the seam of one of them, another bit of luck.

Later, the dog was taken out to do his business in the rain. He came back damp, not soaked, and he smelled like a pile of dirty wet towels. He started to flail about on my bed, limbs flying, nose snorting, but I stopped him in mid-tumble because he was, frankly, disgusting. No amount of rain is going to supplant a good bath. He’s currently air-drying with a little frown on his face. He smells like tacos.

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Wishful thinking.

Rain is a pain. I’m not a giant fan because, well, it’s just a bunch of inconvenient water dropping on you. On my travels I pray for no rain, and I have been exceedingly fortunate that I’ve almost never required an umbrella on the road. When I do need one, I really hate it. I’m the guy whose umbrella turns inside-out in a gust, fuming.

Hours later it’s still trickling outside and the neighbor’s aluminum gutters are making a determined percussive patter. Tomorrow promises more of the same. We need the water. So much of the world does. So I don’t make a point of cursing the heavens. “Do not be angry with the rain,” said Nabokov. “It simply does not know how to fall upwards.”