This must be a particularly hard area for meteorologists to predict the weather. Yesterday morning, there was an 80% chance of rain, but only a few meager drops fell from the clouds, not enough even to color the sidewalk. When I went to bed last night, the chance of rain forecast for this morning was 10%, dropping to 0% after 10:00am. Well, this morning, around 10:00am, the rain started, and it’s been coming down ever since. At first, they said there was a 65% chance of rain, even though it was 100% raining. The forecast changed to 100% a few minutes ago. Now they say it will rain until 1:30, but that might mean it will continue raining until whenever, or it might actually mean it will stop raining soon. Who knows? Obviously, no one.
If I had known that it was going to rain so much today, I wouldn’t have watered yesterday, but I have a hunch it’s my rain dance (me standing outside with a hose) that brought forth all this moisture. If I hadn’t watered, today would have simply been another dry day.
I’m being facetious, of course. Although it sometimes feels as if my doing such things as watering my lawn under the right conditions will cause it to rain, I am simply not that powerful. Like everyone else, I do the best I can with what I am given and create mythologies to help me make sense of little mysteries.
One mystery — not weather related — has been solved. The other day I mentioned getting a letter from a bank I’d never heard of telling me that a cyber breach had impacted my personal and private information, and they referred me to an identity monitoring company to keep track of any use of that information. It turns out that the bank mentioned in the letter had bought out my father’s bank, and although I’d long forgotten (no wonder, since he’s been gone for eight years), I’d been a signatory on his account. Although I decided not to worry about why the breached bank had my information, it’s still good to know that it wasn’t anywhere near as mysterious as it seemed.
Another mystery, one that is weather-related and one I have not yet solved, is how, if it continues raining, am I going to manage to ford all the flooded gutters and get to work later today, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.
Bertram's Blog 
June 27, 2022 at 1:24 pm
That’s good news raining, mystery has been solved, beautiful flowers, less things to cogitate. Have a nice tea and good reading.
June 27, 2022 at 5:58 pm
Thanks. You, too!
June 28, 2022 at 9:20 am
I know that “rain dance” feeling. As I’m still somewhat disorganized with moving, my umbrella ended up somewhere other than at the front door. Being in an apartment now, I didn’t see the darkening sky when leaving for my walk the other day, and didn’t think to get the umbrella. Naturally, halfway through the walk and well away from shelter, the heavens opened. Had I thought to take the umbrella, the squall would no doubt have passed elsewhere.
In psychology, that feeling is known as an “idea of reference”. In extreme, delusional form it’s a symptom of a number of serious mental health problems. It just goes to show we’re all crazy, varying only in degree.
June 28, 2022 at 9:43 am
True, about us all being crazy in various degrees. We all tend to think we’re responsible for things happening that have nothing to do with us. We’re always saying things like “If I had only done this,” or “If I only hadn’t done that,” when in fact, our actions might not have made a bit of difference.
June 28, 2022 at 1:54 pm
I know your feeling. Sunday they said we MIGHT get a 10 % chance of rain & we got a deluge while we were in Wal mart. We had to wait 20 mins for it to let up. I had just had my car wash on Friday, for the firsst time in moths. So much for a clean car.
June 28, 2022 at 6:53 pm
Sounds as if you did your own rain dance by washing the car.