Weather or Knot

I am rewriting A TANGLED YARN now. The time I have to do it is very short, so it’s rather intense. So much so that I thought yesterday was today. I usually write my blog on Thursday and post it after midnight. But since I thought it was Friday, it didn’t register.

Since A TANGLED YARN takes place on the tip of the Monterey Peninsula where it is cloudy most of the time, I noticed the variations of cloudy days when I was last up there. My character has even come up with descriptions of the subtle differences in the light and presentation of the clouds. There are days when the white sky has a tinge of apricot as the sun tries to get through. Sometimes fingers of fog come in from the ocean. You get the idea.

I find that I look at the sky every day and think of how to describe how it appears on that particular day. I always think of something one of my art teachers said once. She was talking about drawing trees and said it was best to look at one when you were drawing so that it became a particular tree instead of a generic one.

Even here in sunny Southern California the sky changes from day to day. Though today there is no sun. It is so gloomy I had to turn a light on to see the keyboard to type this. We haven’t had a real rain storm for a long time, so the gloom stands out even more. It interests me how when the light is like this, it is hard to sense where in the day we are. As I look out the window, the lime tree is so still that it seems as if it’s holding its breath waiting for the rain to hit.

My view of the sky from here is through a filter of trees. It is white but as I look at it growing darker by the moment. What makes it seem odd is that it is relatively warm. Generally, it rains here in the winter and it feels cold (for us) and raw, but this is a storm coming from the south.

So far, despite the dark sky, the rain has been light. I can tell by where the patio is wet and the fact that the bark on the orange tree isn’t shiny.

With our need for rain, you’d think that everyone would be pleased with the prospect, but the rain brings problems. Areas where there were forest fires are prone to mud slides, so the news last night was filled with stories about people putting up piles of sandbags and K-rails to divert run off and there was talk of people being prepared to evacuate.

I used to tense up when rain was predicted because our roof had become like a sieve. There were rooms that I would shroud in black plastic trash bags and then position bowls, buckets and bins around to catch the drips. The problem was that since it doesn’t rain most of the time and we’d had such a drought, we’d forget about the roof, and then if the rain came, it was too late.

But now we have a solid new roof and spruced up gutters, so no more drips. Now the rain has started. I can see the water dripping off the tip of the leaves on the lime tree. But I can tell that it is still on the light side by the sound which is a faint shushing sound. The patch of sky I can see has turned blue gray.

Let’s see what happens next. One thing is for sure. Next Tuesday HOOKING FOR TROUBLE comes out!