Ron swore he saw several pigs in the yard today. He said they were riding in an ark. Or maybe it was a canoe. I went for a walk with the poochies despite the rain. Actually, I did it to spite the rain. Like the rain cares. No need to give the dogs a bath this month. They got so soaked, they're now squeaky clean after a good drenching and a towel dry.
Not all wet dog smell is created equal. Each of mine has his or her own unique odor when dry. Each smells unique when wet, too. Fortunately for me, none of them are particularly funky. They all smell pretty good, wet or dry. Still, there's a bit of a damp-dog aura in the air right now. We'll fire up the wood stove in a little while, when it gets a little cooler, to add some smoldering guava smoke to the aroma mix. Then we'll cook dinner. It'll be a cacophony not of sound, but of smells.
There is no mist these days. No light drizzle. No spritzing. Just giant drops falling out of the sky in such great volume and with such velocity that we've pretty much maxed the volume out on the T.V. most nights just to hear what the characters are saying. Today's paper showed a picture of keiki riding the surf on their boogie boards. The "surf," however, was not in the ocean. The kids were riding on the torrent of water rushing down their neighborhood street. We've had 25 inches of rain since Feb. 1. At this rate, December's 47 inches will soon seem reasonable. We'll look back on January's 14 inches with great fondness; it will seem downright arid by comparison.
Now, I've actually seen it rain this hard many times in my life. I saw the water rise so fast in Denver once that, in the blink of an eye, intersections became impassible, the water instantly higher than the floorboards of 4x4s. That deluge dumped five inches of rain in a matter of minutes. It was exciting. But it ended just as quickly as it started. I've also experienced gloom and drizzle for days on end. I grew up in The Great Pacific Northwest after all and that's pretty much how winter goes there. As rainy as it seemed to me back in the day, my hometown averages only 45 inches per year. Shoots, brah. We're on track to get that much rain this week. Here in the islands, we get these funky, unstable air masses that do not pass through. Rather, they set up camp and make themselves comfortable. The clouds are constantly fed with moisture from the sea so they never seem to wring themselves dry. They just keep dumping their loads, day after day. Good thing this island is made mostly of porous lava rock. There's flooding, for sure, but it would be much worse virtually anywhere else.
Yesterday, we ventured out into the rain to pick up some stuffs and get gas. I went into the new Seven Eleven in Kurtistown just to check it out. I was impressed with how local it is. They are franchises, after all. I had heard that owners definitely cater to local tastes. Dey get da kine spam musubi an' giant sushi rolls l'dat. An' dey get taquitoes stuffed wit' potagee sausage an' egg. Whoa cuz! Goin' steal some da kine bidness from J. Hara Store right nex' doah. J. Hara is a venerable institution in the neighborhood, so it will survive. As local as the Seven Eleven might get, it'll never be as local as J. Hara.
A hui hou. Aloha!
Not all wet dog smell is created equal. Each of mine has his or her own unique odor when dry. Each smells unique when wet, too. Fortunately for me, none of them are particularly funky. They all smell pretty good, wet or dry. Still, there's a bit of a damp-dog aura in the air right now. We'll fire up the wood stove in a little while, when it gets a little cooler, to add some smoldering guava smoke to the aroma mix. Then we'll cook dinner. It'll be a cacophony not of sound, but of smells.
There is no mist these days. No light drizzle. No spritzing. Just giant drops falling out of the sky in such great volume and with such velocity that we've pretty much maxed the volume out on the T.V. most nights just to hear what the characters are saying. Today's paper showed a picture of keiki riding the surf on their boogie boards. The "surf," however, was not in the ocean. The kids were riding on the torrent of water rushing down their neighborhood street. We've had 25 inches of rain since Feb. 1. At this rate, December's 47 inches will soon seem reasonable. We'll look back on January's 14 inches with great fondness; it will seem downright arid by comparison.
Now, I've actually seen it rain this hard many times in my life. I saw the water rise so fast in Denver once that, in the blink of an eye, intersections became impassible, the water instantly higher than the floorboards of 4x4s. That deluge dumped five inches of rain in a matter of minutes. It was exciting. But it ended just as quickly as it started. I've also experienced gloom and drizzle for days on end. I grew up in The Great Pacific Northwest after all and that's pretty much how winter goes there. As rainy as it seemed to me back in the day, my hometown averages only 45 inches per year. Shoots, brah. We're on track to get that much rain this week. Here in the islands, we get these funky, unstable air masses that do not pass through. Rather, they set up camp and make themselves comfortable. The clouds are constantly fed with moisture from the sea so they never seem to wring themselves dry. They just keep dumping their loads, day after day. Good thing this island is made mostly of porous lava rock. There's flooding, for sure, but it would be much worse virtually anywhere else.
Yesterday, we ventured out into the rain to pick up some stuffs and get gas. I went into the new Seven Eleven in Kurtistown just to check it out. I was impressed with how local it is. They are franchises, after all. I had heard that owners definitely cater to local tastes. Dey get da kine spam musubi an' giant sushi rolls l'dat. An' dey get taquitoes stuffed wit' potagee sausage an' egg. Whoa cuz! Goin' steal some da kine bidness from J. Hara Store right nex' doah. J. Hara is a venerable institution in the neighborhood, so it will survive. As local as the Seven Eleven might get, it'll never be as local as J. Hara.
A hui hou. Aloha!
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