May Storms

It has rained for eight straight days. And that may be a conservative estimate, because I can't quite remember the last day yellow light filtered through our blinds to create sun spots for the cats to sleep in. Instead the felines have chosen my lap as their primary source of heat, a decision that wavers (in my experience of it) from drowsy and comfortable to please get this wet cat and her muddy paw prints off of my laptop and out of my water glass.

I'm exaggerating a little--not about the cats--but about the rain. Not about the rain's duration, either, but about my unhappiness with the sun's vacation from Portland. Truth be told, I like the rain, and the stormier the better. The weather suits my inclination to cook and bake, read and write, and watch back episodes of Survivor in the early weekend mornings with Tom. I do miss running around outside, biking and pulling grass shoots out of my plants, and grading in the sun, but since I'm not an X-Man and have no control over the weather (I know! You're shocked!), I can be patient and appreciate the gray sheets soaking my strawberries and encouraging me to drink one more cup of tea before getting up to do something more productive.

So it is that I find myself on Sunday evening, after a mellow day that started early with the gym and will end late with the finale of Lost--filled in the middle by oatmeal pancakes with blackberries and warm maple syrup, reading and working, baking cranberry walnut bread, starting my first batch of yogurt, and a simple solo dinner of wheat berries, red chard braised in (T's amazing) tomato sauce, and a creamy poached egg--sitting on the couch with a damp cat and a computer on my lap, about to dive into the first of Robert Jordan's endless fantasy series.

For the readers who don't know this already, I harbor a secret love for (good) fantasy novels. I came to this self-realization late, when T thrust a Robin Hobb novel into my arms and said, This will change your mind. (It had been a pretentious, dismissive mind.)

It is now a more flexible one.

If you like Grimms Brothers' fairy tales (enough to have read them as an adult) and The Princess Bride and bildungsroman and the dubious authenticity of the Arthurian Legends (and dragons, princesses and magic), you will like fantasy novels. They're fun and expansive worlds, especially in the hands of character-driven authors like Hobb and George R R Martin (though curse you, Martin! For failing to finish the Sword of Thrones series, and for leaving us hanging with a book covering the exploits of the least exciting characters). I've read some Terry Goodkind, too, but a few books into his series I tired of his lovers kept apart by destiny fighting a never-ending stream of evil plotlines. I watched Buffy for that, you know? Give me something with a little more to chew on. Give me less obvious allegories for modern-day struggles.

(So, I am still a little pretentious and dismissive. But I believe in standards. Even brain candy should contain a few nutrients.)

So. Yes. The rainy gray evening and the less damp cat and the more damp sweater and the glass of water with an unmistakable trace of mud. And the book.

I don't really mind the rain.