Of Droughts and Thunderstorms

Never got to doing much of an introduction. Don't intend to.

I live, for the time being, in the sixth largest urban area in north america. It's called Toronto.
The problem? It's been a killing summer. Temperatures easily in the mid thirties, humid, and no rain.
Don't get me wrong now. They've forecasted rain, thunderstorms, but it's rained all of three times here. Three times in the past two months. And in most cases it barely counts. Dribbles.
That's why I'm awake at one in the morning. It's too damned hot. And it feels like it's about to rain.

I love the sound of rain. It patters on the streets, on the sidewalks, on the roof. Thunderstorms are even better. There's nothing quite like stepping outside into a thunderstorm. Even better is that moment, right after a few rain drops have just hit the ground, and then all of a sudden "woosh", everything starts falling down at once, just sort of forces the air out of the way.

I've got pictures, from a few years back and a crappy camera, of the moment a lightning strike up in the clouds went off. The camera was set to take a series of pictures. One shot, it's black out, the next looks like it's mid-afternoon.

Thunderstorms

Dreaming

It's important to note. I don't dream.
Not precisely true I suppose, since if I didn't dream I'd be dead by now. True story.
I don't remember my dreams. Eleven times out of ten.
So of course, the rare time where a dream sticks with me long enough to write it down is a little like finding an unsoiled twenty dollar bill in a ditch. It's worth the trouble to grab it, even if it means getting your feet a little wet. Speaking of wet feet. Well more on that later.

So without beating around the bush (too much punning)

So there's this forest. Tall, spindly trees. The leaves are black, shrivelled, hanging from the branches like a bunch of corpses or something. It's rained recently. The whole place smells, damp. Earthy.

The trees get closer together the further in I get, until it's just a black wall of branches and trunks.

And then it starts to rain, and I wake up.

The drought seems to have ended. It rained last night.

I seem to have taken ill

A rather unpleasant cough. Stuffed nose.
Drinking plenty of fluids. I don't have allergies, but maybe it's just the dry, hot weather we've been having. Easier to catch a bug if you're not well hydrated or something.

Could do with the rain.