Eat Rotten Worms

We have been having a pretty wet June. If I am reading the data correctly (there is a very good chance that I’m not), we have had about 133 mm of rain so far this month and it is raining right now. The average is about 80 mm and June is considered to be our rainiest month. There is a worry about flooding in houses close to the rivers, and in BC they are having a horrible time with flooding. I hope the rain stops soon before too much damage is done.

 

I personally like the rain; it is like Mother Nature is doing some late spring/early summer cleaning. Sometimes it is fun to walk in the rain. I don’t have to worry about melting, even though I am really sweet, I am not made of sugar.

 

I can remember the fun I used to have as a kid just after a rainstorm, jumping in puddles. My mother, like a lot of moms, didn’t really appreciate it when I would come home soaking wet and covered in mud. Sometimes, a mud puddle would eat my rubber boot and I would end up carrying the mud covered thing home under my arm. In my mind it was alright to get my sock dirty walking home barefoot, but not from putting it in the boot. Crazy!

 

I still like jumping in puddles, but I will generally look around to see if there is anyone looking that I should worry about. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I guess those old fears are hard to get rid of. The adult version of puddle jumping is driving through a puddle in your car at speed, creating a wave on one side of the car or the other. If you are lucky, and the puddle is big enough, you can get double waves. That is magic! I was driving with Hurricane just after a rain and went through a puddle, thinking about the smile that would spread across his face. He looked…bored.

 

“Didn’t you like going through the puddle?” I asked.

He said it was okay, but it is way better when he is with his mom. I should have known. Arwen not only has a lead foot, she also has a wicked sense of adventure and little or no fear. That’s my girl! Well, it’s really Louise’s girl. I wonder if dads and Poppas in the old days would drive the wagon at speed through puddles. Probably, cause that is just what we do.

A certain amount of rain makes the world smell new again. It makes you feel a special kind of joy just being alive smelling the freshness. Too much rain smells like dead worms though, which isn’t so invigorating. I have never been able to figure out why worms crawl out of the relative safety of the lawn onto the sidewalk. I try not to step on them, but it is often impossible to avoid all of them. It isn’t one of those Buddhist “Never harm a living thing.” But rather that I don’t want to scrape worm guts out of my running shoes. They stink too! I have to assume that I am not the only one that thinks they stink, because you don’t see birds having a feeding frenzy during the rainstorms.

 

It’s bad enough to have to eat worms, but it would be just awful to eat rotten worms.