Rain AGAIN?

It was raining a little bit yesterday morning, enough so that we had our raincoats, pants and booties on, but not so much I felt like I needed my helmet cover. By the time I left work yesterday evening, it was raining hard and I really needed full battle gear, but as I rode south, I was grinnin' ear to ear, realizing I really do love days like that, and chatting with another cyclist heading out of downtown, we remarked how nice it is to be able to smile through the raindrops.

This morning was a little different story. Yes, I do love being able to smile, but when I got up, it was one of those "saturating mist" rains we have in Seattle that is interspersed with periods of heavy rain. You walk outside and are instantly drenched. I hinted to Mimi that she may not be too excited about being out in it today. She was putting on her bike shoes and rain pants, but she is so easily talked out of it in inclement conditions, it took not much time for her to get changed out of rain gear. I, on the other hand, am not to be deterred this month. Only 2 guys on our 10-man Carpe Velo commute challenge team still have perfect records, me one of them and the team captain the other. I can't blink. So I put on all the plasticized anti-wetness armour and headed out. As I left, I remarked to Mimi that this is the first day all year I've really thought to myself that it would be a really good day to take off and ride the bus. Of course, as it always seems to be, I'm only really miserable for the first couple of minutes while in the process of getting soaked. I equate it to jumping in a cold lake. Once I get used to the cold water, I'm fine, but it does take a moment to adapt. As the #36 passed me going along Beacon Avenue, spraying me with buckets of cold, gritty, muck, I laughed, thinking that I could actually be nice and warm, reading a book and relaxing. Instead, I am being that little boy who doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain, out there in my rain coat and galoshes, stomping in mud puddles, seeing how big of a splash I can make. This just reinforces my age old belief that youth may be fleeting, but immaturity can last a lifetime.

I got to work about as wet as I could ever be, and found I don't have a spare set of socks in my desk as I thought I did, but at least my wet socks are wool so my feet won't be cold and wet all day, just wet. It's supposed to improve as the day goes by - well, we'll see.