Unrelieved

Early afternoon brought a whitening to the sky like a thin stir of milk. Clouds then overwhelmed the remaining blue and left the day gray. Sprinkles fell, scenting the air with that chunky smell of pavement newly dampened, that always smells like dust before it smells like water. Since then there've been sprinkles off and on. I got no evening walk. I'll see no moon unless the clouds part. The rain is too little and too late. The annual report of the state of the snow pack in the mountains came out today. It's a bit more than a quarter of normal. I can almost smell the sere brown lawns of late summer already. The thought of them makes me thirst. This piddling of rain will quench nothing. As usual, California is doomed.