Gray

[rejectomorph]

The roof repair didn't get tested yesterday after all, but it might get tested tonight. Hours of overcast made me nostalgic for the beach. When I lived in Los Angeles I always enjoyed going to the beach on overcast days. A bit of rain to pock the sand was a bonus, but even just the gray sky darkening the waves was enjoyable.

An overcast forest is less appealing. Forests are at their best when sunlight or moonlight falls through the trees and dapples the ground. But in the absence of an ocean, I made do with the steely reflection of the sky caught in the bowl of water the cats drink from and the birds bathe in. Not quite the Pacific, but pleasant.

Now I'm listening to a few drops of rain hitting the leaves of the mulberry tree outside my window. I hope there will be more. I'm in the mood for a rainy night, and the sooner the roof repair gets tested, the better.

Oh, an my house got selected for that follow-up survey from the census bureau, so I've got a long form to fill out. Well, if I weren't doing that I'd probably just be pissing the time away on the Internets anyway.

Comments

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

It tipped down here last night. Bright sunshine this morning, though.

I'm with you on the overcast days. Gloomy days make for gloomy moods - at least in my case.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

when i was 18, my great-aunt, who was living in pomona at the time, paid for my flight out from hoosierland to LAX. i stayed with an uncle & aunt in anaheim before going on to pomona. while i was in anaheim, a friendly neighbor kid took me along to the beach one night. i'm not a beach person at all when it comes to bathing suits and sun, but i liked it at night. have you been to the atlantic coast to see the difference? i was amazed by all that smooth sand. there were no grunions running, alas.

[rejectomorph]

Ah, the grunion. Though I lived in Los Angeles more than forty years, I never made it to a grunion run either. My mom once caught a small shark while fishing from Manhattan Beach pier, though.

Yes, California's sand is very nice, but at many beaches it has to be pumped into place. Urban development and flood control systems dried up the streams and rivers that had kept the beaches fed with new sand, and by the 1950s miles and miles of them had to be artificially replenished periodically to keep the waves away from the bluffs, lest those erode and drop very expensive houses and apartment buildings into the surf.

I've never visited the Atlantic coast, but I've heard that some of the beaches are rather pebbly. I know the water is usually warmer there than it is here, though, thanks to the Gulf Stream. The California Current comes down from Vancouver Island, and the water often gets very chilly.

[rejectomorph]

The first few gray days of the year always cheer me up, but in those years when we get Oregon's weather instead of Southern California's weather (we have no weather of our own to speak of) I soon grow tired of them.