It is pretty neat that we are finally getting some rain here.  I’ve been a little down and out lately.  That rain cheered me right up.

This past week, or so, we’ve actually had a few good stints… where the clouds open up… and VOILA’!  Water comes out!

I had almost forgotten what that looked and felt like.  The drought has been pretty serious business in these parts, you see.

But finally, we are getting precipitation.  I will not complain about the rain.  No way.  No how.  But I have heard some gruff and huff about it.  “Grumble. Grumble. Grumble…. rain all weekend… grumble…”

How soon we forget how it felt in the Ohio Desert Plains.

Tonight, after a great downpour, I went outside to smell the smells, and feel that “just after rain” feeling in the air.  I was breathing it all in.  When down by my foot came this handsome fella.

If it had been a snake… it would have bitten me!

Oh wait.

As it turns out, he did bite me.  Right on the tip of my finger.  But, that is what I get when I try to pick up a snake, who is grumpy about trying to put his 173 children through snake-college.

So. First he smelled me.  Then he bit me.

I am not sure what that means in the scheme of the universe.  But I do know this…..

The next time I go to pick up a snake….  I will put a little clothespin on his tongue… so he can’t smell me coming.

No.  That’s not right.

The next time I go to interupt a snake from his daily tasks…. I will first ask him if he has a few moments to spend with me.  Perhaps ask if he’d like to take a walk around the yard in my hand… or such.  Or even just sit and pitch a hissy fit.

Yes.  Maybe we could both use a good hissy fit.  But not about the rain.

“That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.” – Rabindranath Tagor