Rain and Umbrellas

I don’t own an umbrella.  This might seem to be a strange thing to blog about, but I was reminded of it while watching the rain gently come down while sitting in Starbucks.  A group of men stood under a tree seeking shelter while others held their shopping bags over their head.  Some people quickly pulled their hoods up or hid under their umbrellas.  Then you have the hard core people that just deal with it.  Their hair dampens from the water droplets falling upon it, and it looks like they just stepped out of the shower… sort of. 

Umbrellas seem to be such a hassle. You have to remember to have it with you then if you do have it with you, you have to figure out what to do with it once it gets wet. Then there is the awkward moment of walking next people with umbrellas and you get wetter from the drips off the umbrella rather than the rain itself.  Sometimes this can happen to yourself with your own umbrella.  It never seems to just rain, usually there is a “bit” of a breeze or a full out hurricane. There is an art of trying to keep the umbrella right side up rather than flipping inside out.  It’s an art that I am far from mastering. 

Instead, I just pull up my hood or just get wet.  Since moving to the land of rain and green hills, there have been few times that I have gotten poured on.  There was that one day when it was sunny one minute and literally the next minute it was raining cats and dogs.  If it weren’t for the fact that I was wearing my mates outreach jacket, I would have been completely drenched.  As one young person once said, the weather here is bipolar.  So with any bipolar situation, you prepare for the unexpected and you delight in the moment.  So far, the rain hasn’t killed me and I don’t expect it to!