It's raining cats and dogs - don't step in a Poodle!

Yesterday was a sunny, perfect day. In the evening Kurt and I sat outside under the sunflowers, chatting while the steaks sizzled on the grill (he's experimenting with using soft maple wood scraps instead of charcoal briquettes). Baloo wandered around, occasionally trying to persuade us to throw a slimy hedge apple. We could hear Aurelia pulling her red wagon around the village. We had been on Clean Team (everyone here at DR is divided into 4 teams and we take turns cleaning the Common House each Sunday) and so had washed all of the commie towels in preparation for the Visitor Period beginning today. They were all drying happily in the sun.

So this morning I got up, and went to find Annie and Sparky, who were headed to Rutledge. I heard a rumbling in the gray sky, but thought to myself (in an antihistimine stupor) "oh, it's so quiet here - that must be a truck going down highway M." Ha!

No sooner had we stepped inside of Zimmerman's when the skies opened. That was two hours ago and it is STILL pouring. In honor of the rain I am passing on today's poem from Writer's Almanac. It's pretty perfect:

Black Umbrellas
By Rick Agran

On a rainy day in Seattle stumble into any coffee shop

and look wounded by the rain.

Say Last time I was in I left my black umbrella here.

A waitress in a blue beret will pull a black umbrella

from behind the counter and surrender it to you

like a sword at your knighting.

Unlike New Englanders, she'll never ask you

to describe it, never ask what day you came in,

she's intimate with rain and its appointments.

Look positively reunited with this black umbrella

and proceed to Belltown and Pike Place.

Sip cappuccino at the Cowgirl Luncheonette on First Ave.

Visit Buster selling tin salmon silhouettes

undulant in the wind, nosing ever into the oncoming,

meandering watery worlds, like you and the black umbrella,

the one you will lose on purpose at the day's end

so you can go the way you came

into the world, wet looking.

"Black Umbrellas" by Rick Agran from Crow Milk. © Oyster River Press, 1997.

Here's our new patch. I LOVE it! We're putting it on organic cotton hats, and also selling it by itself. It also comes in blue. $1 from each sale goes to Dancing Rabbit.

Also, the Press Release for the Mercantile is supposed to go out today. It's been quite an education, learning about SEO, imbedded URLs, etc. My head is spinning, and I'm still not sure I got it all right. But it is certainly fun! And I'm also going to present myself with an MBA someday soon. I'll post the Press Release as soon as I'm sure it's correct.