Drip, Drip, Drip

It was a dark and stormy night.... Well, it was! Not a blustery storm, but stormy nonetheless, and the absence of the moon rendered the weepy clouds invisible. Rain began about midnight, and has fallen steadily since. A single cricket, inhabiting the flower bed that is protected from the rain by the broad eaves adjacent to the porch, has continued to chirp, its springtime insect instincts undampened. But I, bemused by the unaccustomed June precipitation, have been subject to frequent bouts of woolgathering, as the soft pattering seduces me from the attentive state which the cold air spilling through my open window would normally produce. Oh, shameless weather!

The scent of jasmine has of course been suppressed, but I have for several minutes now been brought the fine fragrance of fresh skunk spray. My cat is outside at the moment, and I am full of hope that it was not she who was the cause of the skunk's offense. The cat, bemused as myself, has been in and out several times. This late in the season she is accustomed to warm, dry nights which she is wont to pass entirely outdoors, alternately napping in her favorite patio chair and wandering about her territory, doing whatever it is that cats do when we aren't watching them. Her frequent returns to the warm living room tonight have been evidence of her displeasure with the sodden state of things. I am unoffended by the rain, of course. My lack of water-retaining fur may have something to do with this.

I have no idea how long the rain might continue. Its arrival was unpredicted by the newspaper, and find that I have no desire to seek out any other source of information. I rather enjoy not knowing. I have no plans that would be disrupted should the rain continue even a day or two, and thus have no need to know in advance nature's expected course. I am pleased merely to listen, and to smell the fresh scent of wet, spring vegetation (by now mingled with but the slightest remaining hint of eau de skunk.) Indeed, I could sit here for hours, letting my thoughts drift, as the sky turns dusky blue and pales to stormy gray, but I believe that the cat wants back in. Let's hope that her scent remains as fresh as the morning's.

Arrrgh!

I have something to say to Logitech, makers of the keyboard that came with my new computer:

What brain-dead techie of yours designed a keyboard with two "alt" keys immediately adjacent to a too-narrow space bar? I'm always hitting the damned things with my thumb, with unpleasant results, such as the sudden disappearance of an entire post I'd just spent half an hour putting together. Hitting the misplaced "Alt" instead of the too-narrow space bar, followed by some letter key (and who thought up that brilliant combination, browser designers?) apparently leads to the closing of the browser and subsequent loss of its contents, unless you are one of those obsessive savers who copies everything to the clipboard after writing each line (I'm not.) Thanks, Logitech. (Oh, and my Logitech optical mouse goes through batteries faster than an Alaskan nyctophobic's flashlight in December.)

Sad to say that Sluggo had a better layout on his clunky old keyboard than the new computer does. Maybe I'll switch them.

I'll have to re-write the thing later, if I have the time. I'm running way late, already.