i feel the drizzle of the rain, like a memory it falls

This is funny, the story about the dryer that vents inside. It reminds me of a house we had in North Carolina – our first one as a married couple, one that Kathleen probably remembers well. It was in the middle of oblivion. The directions went something like, “Go five miles down this country road, turn left, and then go five miles down THAT country road, then turn right and go five more miles …” And it was so flat, it made the sky look big, just as it looks here. Like a plains oasis in a hilly state.
The house sat at the front of a trailer park; our landlord was its owner. It was beautiful, built by hand in the 1940s by J.C. himself (the landlord, not the deity). It had the original tongue-in-groove interior walls; the original, perilous wiring that gave off smoky whiffs when the glass fuses blew, which was often; and a full front porch with a light that we never used. Robins built a nest in the light, and our last year there, the robins had chicks. I taped the light switch so nobody would make the fatal mistake of setting the nest (and our house) on fire. I watched the babies obsessively and listened for their mother to come for feedings. When the last chick left the nest, I cried. A month later, I was pregnant.
J.C., the landlord, was a talker. I dreaded his visits to the house because it meant he would tell the same boring story in circles, until afternoon turned to night. Although he looked about 300 years old, I think he was closer to 70 – crinkly, wrinkly skin weathered by years of sun. He mumbled like Jesse Helms. He always wore one of those trucker caps with the netting in the back and the huge bill in front, the ones that stand tall (this was long before Von Dutch made those cool again). And he kept trying to kill us. I’m thinking in particular of the dryer vent – one day, I looked outside and there was a plastic bag covering it. Each time I removed it, it reappeared a day later. But at least the dryer was in the mudroom, and I could close it off so the whole house didn’t get fuzzy.

I have missed that spacious mudroom since we’ve been here. We have one now, but it’s so wee, all I can get in there is our teeming recycling bins (they recycle everything here!) and our coats and shoes. We, too, have a creaky washer and dryer, which came with this house. I’m pretty sure it dates back to “Who Shot J.R.?” and “Pac-Man Fever.”

Here today, the rain is coming, and I can't wait. I don't think it's really, truly rained all summer, not since we had flash floods at the beginning of June. It threatens to rain about five times a week, but usually it evaporates before it hits the ground, which creates the unusual phenomenon of seeing it above you and never feeling it. When it does actually make it down, it's like taking a cold shower with a Water-Pik on its lowest setting -- spit spit spit -- and it lasts about 30 seconds. Those are the days when people around here whine, "It's so humid today." Weenies.
Water is such a scarce commodity here, it's hard to justify watering anything but ourselves, the flowerpots and the Sea Monkeys. I admire people who have lush summer lawns, but with a perpetual drought I just can't justify it. It's going to be cool tomorrow -- 68 for a high, with steady rain. Hold on for just another day, my gasping brown grass.