wet splashy dazzling rain.
RIGHT NOW.
this minute.
beating down on my little red&white striped alluminum awning. i’m wrapped up in a sweater. happy as a clam. sitting right by the window. typing this missive to you. looking outside. with the window open. and i don’t care how cool it gets because this is the first rain of the season and i feel drunk.
oh hi! how are you?
happy i hope. enjoying autumn pleasures in your small corner of the world.
i’ve been busy with my daytime cat herding and nighttime Ticket to Venice activities. i really want this class to be special. and i’m working hard to make that happen.
that means i’m blogging less. plotting more.
but this rain is so marvelous i had to quit what i was doing and snap a few photos and just sit awhile HERE. breathing in this rain. i can smell the trees, the sages, the vines. rich barky green smells drifting inside.
mmmmm the world is so alive. conscious.
i think i can hear the leaves and roots sighing as they take in all this water.
small ordinary pleasures.
as soon as i got home this afternoon i sank into my couch and stared outside the window. wishing this weather would last. but it won’t. it’s too early in the season. saturday we’ll be back to 88 blazing degrees of sunshine. blech.
someone will be happy about that.
but for now…it is wet and i am beaming.
as far as books go…
i am reading this. fabulous so far. thanks susan from kent ohio! you hit the nail on the head when you thought this was something i would like. clever funny unusual mysterious. all of that. so good!
i am reading this. fabulous so far. thanks susan from kent ohio! you hit the nail on the head when you thought this was something i would like. clever funny unusual mysterious. all of that. so good!
what about you? reading anything GOOD?
My cat looks like your cat!
Beautiful photographs Miss Mary Ann. I’m here still waiting for rain, but not looking forward to the mud on little paws. They say any time now, but I don’t really believe them.
Love the photo of the couch next to the window. Makes me want to come over and curl up with a blanket and a book!
Transplated midwesterners who lived in so Calif,we missed the seasons so much that we eventually found our way to the Pacific Northwest where today we are enjoying a pleasant rainfall after a most wonderful summer and fall so far. I have many books from the library and bookstores in my various piles and read several at a time, so today I cozied myself in the chair and sampled a few. Am really enjoying these two: The Year We Left Home, by Jean Thompson, pitch-perfect descriptions of middle class, middle America family life beginning in the 70s with wonderful humor and likeable people; and American Boy by larry Watson, who also wrote an all-time favorite of mine, Montana 1948. Enjoying everyone’s recommendations and loving the photos and words in this post, Mary Ann.
Mary Ann,
I just added Mr. Penumbra’s to my wish list. I am so glad to hear it is as good as it sounds…
can’t wait for your ticket to venice! Love your classes and love Venice.
And in Houston it is supposed to hit 90 today, humid, awful… We did have a cool front with some fabulous days a week or so ago but it was just a tease. At least it let’s us know that the summer will finally come to an end. I’m with you rain and cool temps sound fabulous. Sick of the sun and the heat…
So well described, I think I can feel your rain here, in the South of the globe 🙂
Beautiful photos!!
Love your rain photos and the sweet kitty too. I am in Washington and I am doing the happy dance as we finally got rain. I think the last time I had rain was in June. I know it is strange weather for WA. My trees and flowers are so happy I think I can hear them singing.
I adore your “what are you reading” posts. Get so many good ideas, and you’ve managed to collect a bunch of blog visitors with similar tastes. I’m currently reading “Feeling Good” (shrink homework) and Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. Evidently the author’s inspiration left her as soon as she penned the title because what could have been a juicy, intriguing read is turning out to be stale rye krisp sans soda to wash it down. I’m thinking of abandoning my life long habit of finishing books I start, you know, feeling my mortality at 57 and all…
No rain here yet, although the weatherman keeps predicting it. And I am trying to get parts of my house repainted. Love your beautiful pictures of the rain. I like everything in moderation. Love the sun, love the rain. I just finished reading “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” which I loved right up until the ending! Just absolutely hated the ending….
Oh how I long for 88 degree weather! It’s 46 degrees here in Toronto today – brrr. I’m so not ready for winter! Keep plotting, Miss Mary Ann, I await the new class with bated breath, quivering with excitement. Love those pretty pillows by the window!!
It was actually cool and autumnal (read: 70 degrees) this morning here in FL. The oak tree out front is spewing acorns so when you drive over them, they make all sorts of exciting pops and crunches. In these hot climes, one takes one’s pleasures where one can. Love the banner and lettering on “Ticket to Venice” and those soft looking pillows. Sigh.
Your photos get better and better
your place looks even more cozy in the rainy weather! enjoy.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – like a magical mesmerizing dream that you keep wanting to go back to. Deeply satisfying escape. I am in awe of the imaginations and visions of authors like her. AND…Just discovered Alexandra Fuller and finished “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” in short order. Jumped right into “Cocktails Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. Both are memoirs (not my usual genre) about a white farm family growing up in war torn Central Africa at the end of 20th century with a very eccentric mother. A little “Glass Castle” – ish in part, but the parents were nowhere near as grimly detached from the children. I felt like I could smell the smells of Africa and feel the discomfort of such a wild and wooly existence.
PS. Oh yes, thank heavens for the rain. I feel like my soul has been renewed!
I”m with you Mary Ann — love rain and hate 88″. We got a few drops here in San Francisco too but not like your rain. Looks wonderfully cozy.
Lovely photos! Read “How to be a woman” by Caitlin Moran, quote on my blog. Awesome on how to be a “strident feminist”. 🙂
You are very welcome 🙂
Alas, we had a similar day in Phoenix….we live for these days since they are few and far between. I threw the doors open both front and back with wild abandon…gleefully turned off the air conditioning as though it were mardi gras…so blissful….I applauded when the wind whipped up and I could hear the blinds on the back patio banging back and forth…I photographed every dark cloud in the sky hovering above me…..it was the perfect day….
Reading Riding on the wind and Summer Moon… Both books about the Parker family who got caught in the settlers war between whites and Indians. Hope I am not saying anything unpoliticely correct… Flemish people have at times trouble to keep and say it all in a good way. I am loving those two books because the obduction of Cynthia Ann Parker has been one of my life’s big subjects to learn about…
Another book that I reread every five years is Asta’s Book by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. Mysterie galore when a baby vanishes. Can’t tell you more! It’s one of those books that grip you so much that I actually went into the archives of the newspaper I worked for to look up history around 1914, and whether a boat with cadets really sunk…
that rain looks quite relaxing, yes. I’m reading Female Nomad and Friends by Rita Golden Gelman- an anthology of essays about people making connections with one another through travels/ etc. Really enjoying it. Happy Friday! xo
So odd down here in Long Beach, it poured rain here at my house for about an hour, now it is clear but cool. A perfect night for working in my visual journal.
“Saturday we’ll be back to 88 blazing degrees of sunshine. blech”.
Ugh, Maryann, I am sooo with you. Enough already! But I have really enjoyed the last few days, and the rain this evening.
Reading Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes. Loving it. Been missing you. Glad you’re enjoying the rain. We should have some this weekend. Be well.
Oh how I love the view from your windows, but I really love the placement of your neighbor (6th picture). sigh.
Ah…rain, we need it so badly, a normal fall in MN would give us days and days of the splishy splashy delight but we’ve not had rain in weeks and weeks, supposed to rain on saturday, 80% chance, I’m hopping, I do so love rainy days, stormy nights and more rainy days. I can’t sit still waiting for our tickets to Venice to arrive…I just can’t, dancin and what not all over the house, I’m finishing up 11/22/63 awesome book which keeps me wondering how it’s going to end. I’ve got The Dog Stars on my list. NOthin better than curling up with a good book, listening to the rain fall, and let the world fall away, drip by tiny drip.
I took your suggestion and read Tell the Wolves Im Home. Loved it!!! Just started The Land of Decoration….where ten year old Judith McPherson recreates the world in her bedroom out of scraps of trash. Im hooked so far!!
oh! I so love the rain. Your photos are beautiful and I can feel the coziness. Thanks for sharing.
I’m doing the happy rain dance here in southern NV…we’ve had two storms this summer & early fall…brought enough to equal our annual rainfall total…a big whooping 4 inches. Temps dropped from high 80’s to the 60’s…Whee. This is my favorite time of year, from now to early spring when the windy season starts up. I love the smell of the desert, that smell that can’t be described in words…there’s an element of sage, of desert native plants that is so unique. I’m a happy camper, I tell you.
I’m finishing off A Million Little Pieces (don’t bother!) and looking forward to starting Journal of a Solitude after you wrote about it.
And I’m waiting for the rain to go away and the sun to come out in my part of the world!
Please continue plotting….plotting is good!. I’ve started “The Dog Stars”… holey moley! I love all the fishing speak! Yes, I am a fisherwoman. Ha!