And on the third day… I woke really, really early. After about three and a half hours of glorious sleep, my bladder decided that I needed to get up. And though I fought it for a good thirty minutes, there was no denying it was going to win and the sooner it had its minor victory, the sooner I could return to sleep. Except for a few minor glitches. First, I was absolutely awake. Then my stomach was acting all hungry and I started getting concerned that I would need some anti-nausea medication because it was hard to identify whether the queasy feeling I was getting was the driving factor or the result of my hunger pangs. So then my brain really perked up to take stock of the situation. By the time I concluded I shouldn’t worry and I was just getting hungry early, the rain really started coming down outside.
After three years of drought in Southern California, a pelting rain makes a pretty compelling sound. And it was coming down load on the window near my head, not to mention the general roof. The cat had already been worried from the sounds of the wind and it was amazing me that the other humans in the house hadn’t all woken up already. And then came the deluge.
It reminded me immediately of the first week in our last house when a rain like this hit and flooded our storage area under the house, sending my wife and I out to move boxes we feared would fill with water. But this one didn’t last quite as long, at least not the primary dump. Still, it brought a compelling wind and a lingering plip plop of raindrops which, under other circumstances might have been somewhat soothing. But now all I could think about was the lone heirloom tomato that was finally the size of a tiny fist after the vine had been nurtured for literally eight or nine months without fruit. Would that tomato have survived the night?
By the time of this thought, it was twelve minutes to four in the morning. The rain was finally subsiding and the wind whispering off in the distance. My wife had risen to check on our daughter (still asleep) and wisely returned to bed. There was still time to sleep another two hours before the alarm. I decided to make the attempt, even as the howl of sirens now filled the night air from the main street just a few blocks away. It’s always something with LA drivers in the rain.
By 7:15, I had been up and had breakfast, helped get everyone ready for school and enjoyed knowing that the extra thirty minutes of sleep I finally achieved around 5:20 had perked me up just enough… Feeling great, but knowing I would hit a wall in a few hours, I checked my tomato and saw it still clinging faithfully to its vine. It had weathered the continuing storm thus far, and the rain now was much more gentle. My thought was that it was a good omen for the day.
To make it even better, my daughter was serenading herself with a rendition of “Best Days of My Life,” beautifully and robustly and I thought, yeah, that is how it should be.
American Authors – Best Day Of My Life: http://youtu.be/Y66j_BUCBMY
Truth be told, by around 2 pm my stomach was beginning to feel off and by 3 or 4 it was generally icky feeling. But I haven’t felt anything beyond some basic stomach upset and maybe a touch of constipation (and I apologize for the over share). These are still milder symptoms than we were cautioned about, which keeps me on the happy side of things, at least as far as my immediate bodily functions are concerned. Hey, this is a diary entry, roll with it.