The rain it raineth every day

The rest of the USA is experiencing record heat and sun, from what I read in the papers. Not here. In Portland, we've had "measurable rain" every day for the last 2 weeks. We are almost double our usual rainfall for the month of May, and -- after a couple of years of being about 30% below our average annual rainfall, we've made up to within an inch this spring.

And this is not your typical Portland rain, which is light showers and general drizzle -- annoying, but not even umbrella-worthy.  No, this is torrential downpours, with thunder and lightning (still nothing like a good prairie thunderstorm).  The ground is completely soaked, with muddy puddles on every paved intersection. Tree limbs block the way as you walk down the sidewalk, marinated leaves heavy with all the extra water.

The azaleas are taking it badly. Ours bloomed last weekend, and normally we have a few weeks of bright, sunny pink fluffiness. The buckets of rain have saturated and collapsed the blossoms, so instead, we have the remnants of a giant child's ice cream in the front garden, the mint-chocolate-chip mostly scraped away and the raspberry sherbet left for later.

They say the rain is supposed to taper off, but not for a few more days yet. We shall sea.  (hee hee)

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

- Twelfth Night