Here Come the Rains!

Looking out my office window, I see gray skies, a light but steady rain falling, and small puddles of water gathering in the parking lot. What wonderful weather! I absolutely love balmy, overcast days and rainy days are even better. I guess that makes me an atypical California-resident. After all, living in Southern California and not liking sunshine is almost sacrilegious! But really, 365 days of sunshine is too, too much. I’ve always been partial to dark and dreary days with strong winds, rain showers, thunder, lightning, and cool temperatures. In fact, if I were asked to choose between a hot summer day or a strong (signal number 3) typhoon – I’d most likely pick the latter. Well, depending on what I had planned for that day, I guess.

Of course today would be even more ideal if only I were home, in my flannel pajamas, curled up in bed with a good book, hot chocolate with mini marshmallows on the side, and my hubby beside me. But instead, I get to enjoy the rainy weather while sitting at my desk, drinking lukewarm green tea, going through client reports, and anticipating a horrendous heavy-traffic drive home. We really can’t have it all.

I remember typhoons back in Manila when classes and sometimes work would be cancelled, forcing everyone to stay home. Most times the electricity would go off and homes were quiet. My family would gather in our enclosed terrace listening to the rain pounding the roof and the winds blowing thru the trees. We would be enjoying the cool weather and sipping frothy melon shakes which for some reason my mom would always prepare. My dad would be reading the newspaper while the rest of us would bring out board games (Scrabble, Monopoly and Boggle most often!) or start making up silly mind games. Sometimes, if we could persuade her, my sister, Joy would play the piano. We would always have dinner early (so there was still some light out) but they eventually ended up as candlelight dinners since we would all linger around the table. The meals were not fancy since Manang Mercy, our cook, had no electricity and sometimes no water to prepare the food. But for some reason, it is those meals that I often miss the most. Sardines in tomato sauce, corned beef with diced potatoes, garlic fried rice, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, crispy adobo flakes, and Royco chicken noodle soup -- the powdered soup and dried noodles that came in those green packets that you added to boiling water (for some reason this was our favorite soup and I can still remember how we would closely watch whoever was ladling the bowls to make sure each one of us got our "fair share").

These days I don’t get to enjoy many rainy days. I think it is one of the disadvantages of living here in Los Angeles. But whenever we have them (like today), I really get homesick for my family and those rainy days back home.