Rainy Friday

Its late Friday afternoon and its raining. I'm sitting in my car typing this blog on my laptop while I wait for my daughters bus. About two years ago we enrolled Jaime at Texas School for the Deaf. TSD is located in Austin, Texas. It was a difficult decision for me to make because it meant that Jaime would attend school in Austin for the week, stay in a dorm and then return home every weekend. It is parenting long distance. So many factors are involved, but I'll save that for another blog. The school charters a bus every weekend to send the kids to their home towns on Friday and then they send the bus back every Sunday to pick them up and take them back to Austin. Its quite an endeavour. The drawback is that I have to take her to the drop off location which is located about 30 minutes from our house and also pick her up every Friday afternoon. My office isn't too far from the drop/pick up site, so I usually try to finish my Fridays at the office so I'm able to meet her in time. Thankfully the drop off location is at a McDonalds/Chevron. The McDonalds has wifi, so I'm able to get on the Internet while I wait. Now that I've explained that, I'm sitting here watching the rain and waiting. The bus is late and I imagine that is attributed to the whether. Rain is like that. It tends to slow things down, cause delays. I've had some bad experiences in the rain. I was hit by a car that ran a red light. It just happened to be raining when I was hit and the slick conditions caused my car to spin. I can't say for sure how long I was spinning, but it seemed like a dozen times. I was okay, but my car wasn't. That was several years ago, but I'm still scarred by the experience. I have a tendency to look both ways at a four way even when my light is green. I'm cautious just in case there is some person not paying attention. In contrast, rain also has a calming affect on me. I love to sit inside on a rainy day, drink a cup of tea or coffee and read a good book (assuming that I am alone in the house and everyone is gone of course) or take a nap (which I rarely do.) Rainy days make me stop "doing." Anyone who knows me well understands that sitting still is not easy for me to do. The rain forces me to stop. It gives me permission to rest. I like that. I need it too. Happy rainy Friday. Jaimes bus has arrived.