Why do people get excited about monsoon season? the girlfriend asks with mild exasperation. It goes from 110 and dry to 101 and humid, and if it rains it cools off for maybe half an hour and then we're steamy again.
I shrug. 110 and dry, 101 and muggy, to me they're simply different paths to the same level of misery, so we might as well have a multimedia presentation to go along with it.
Most of us love monsoon season, I think, because gives us small packages of drama on a daily basis and we're desperate for relief wherever we can find it. Wispy clouds at sunrise give way to cumulus puffs that build through the midmorning into the afternoon, when they tower with brilliant white anvils above glowering purple-gray bases. The wind swirls here and there, lightning flashes over the mountains, and we wait with growing anticipation, listening for the distant rumble, hoping it comes closer, poised for the elusive whiffs of cool air that organize into a genuine cool gust that ushers in the rain, a few bits of spittle here and there, growing into drops that splat in the dust and finally hammer the desert into submission. If the storm is still building as the sun goes down, the sunset is a watercolor masterpiece painted across the clouds, the dust and ice particles in the air creating a perfect wash of brilliant orange grading through pink into purple, the cumulonimbus canvas backlit and edged with liquid gold.
Yeah, didn't happen yesterday, except for the bit about the sunset. I caught a half-minute's rain on my windshield on the way home, but we did get a prodigious wind that dumped pine needles all over the yard and toppled a few signs between home and the office. The swamp cooler apologetically pumped not very cool air into the house last night, which I spent with the floor fan on full blast, not feeling the need to stick my toes under the sheet until about 4:30 this morning.
But that's okay. Today the slate is wiped clean and we watch the sky and hope again.
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