Happy Groundhog's Day

Still more lovely rain has chosen to fall, providing my ears with entertainment throughout the night; first with faint tricklings in the rain gutters, and now with a furious, rattling downpour. I like it to be at its loudest just when I'm going to sleep. Rainstorms are fine soporifics, drowning thoughts with relaxing patterns of sound. Rain is a liquid meditation on which one drifts away with ease, all distractions dissolving into its stream, all barriers to dreams flooded over. Too, the light of morning will be softened by dense cloud, the tons of dispersed water preserving longer some part of night's deep repose. I should sleep well.

Unshadowed

I could look on the bright side and say that on days when LJ pages are taking forever to load, at least some people get discouraged and post less, so I have less to read. But then, when I make a comment on one of those fewer posts, that takes forever to load, and sometimes the comment double-posts, and then I have to delete it, which also takes forever. So, on the whole, it takes about as long whether the site is fast or slow. I'm more disturbed by the disarray of the default BML pages (which appears to have something to do with the fact that S2 is currently broken -- my S1 journal and friends page are fine.) On the log-in page, Frank the Goat has been lifted up into the banner at the top of the page, so that his head and legs are mostly concealed behind other things. and it looks as though he's been mutilated by the members of some terrible cult which preys on hapless virtual goats. Most distressing. I suppose it will be fixed, eventually.

I don't know if the groundhog saw his shadow today, or not. Had he lived here, he wouldn't have. The heavy overcast assured that no shadows other than its own fell on the rain-saturated ground. I saw a small bird drinking from a pool of rain water which had accumulated under the mulberry tree. The acorn woodpeckers were on the utility pole again, but there were only four of them today. All the purple gladiolas along the fence are blooming, though their spiky green leaves droop from the hours of pounding rain. Three camellias have bloomed, as well, and add a bright splash of red to the gray and green view from my window. The rain finally stopped late in the afternoon, so perhaps the moon will emerge tonight and make the raindrops still hanging from twigs and clinging to bushes sparkle with its limpid light. That would be nice.