And the Rains Came:

Looking out the balcony glass door I see a wet – miserable – grey sky with rain falling like a wall of water. Fall rains that will turn into winter rains soon enough are now pouring out side. We have had such a long dry period that we forgot what is coming and now indeed has arrived, I am also sure that the thought of the rainy seasons has always been smouldering in the back of our minds.

So here I sit as a couch potato all day in front of the boob tube wasting time as the rain falls. Dalhouise has been taken out only to the front door of the complex to water the closest tree but I know eventually I will have to walk him a little further.

Sitting in the dry condo my thoughts begin to ponder about this up coming week – my last week of employment will beginning this Monday with 57 guests arriving for lunch. Five full days of work will be hard to adjust too as the last two weeks we only have worked short weeks enjoying long weekends back to back. I know that I am tired and as I have talked to the other staff they have expressed the same sentiment' s. This past week I have been able to clean and empty two of the four freezers and this week I plan on using all freezer stock in the other two except for a few odds and ends so that I can unplug all four freezers for the winter. I know already at this point I have less canned and dried stock then previous years so we will not be over wintering much of that stock either.

How many last weeks – last days will I endure. Thoughts go back to my military days and how during the last days of exercises, training, there seemed to be more fist fights and problems. People seemed to use those days to settled old scores. On the other hand during the last days – people also get energized with new life, new energy to complete the tasks at hand. There is an underlining giddiness that surfaces as the end comes closer and closer. 

The Television is off now and all through the unit --- I hear sounds like a couple fighting from below or is it their Television?  Above me I hear the splatter of rain drops falling on the sky light and the swoosh of cars traveling fast on the wet pavement of the freeway echoing throughout the living room in the darkness of the night. The cabin offers sounds of crickets and chirping birds and kids laughing and hoots of owls and now my ears must readjust to the sounds of a Condo life. Is there ever any real silence?   Life is full of sounds and noise. Recalling my time when I was working on the oil rigs up near the Yukon border and British Columbia I would wander away from the rigs alone along the ice roads, but it did not seem to matter how far I would walk I could always hear the hum of some man made machinery in operation in the distance.

Splattering drops of rain hitting the sky lights is a welcoming sound – living on the top floor of the Condo I get this benefit to help ease the fact that I am not in the cabin in the woods nor in a single dwelling house but an apartment. Not that there is anything wrong with apartment living – just that I have lived the majority of my life in a house. The sky lights offer the light of the moon to penetrate our little unit when it not hidden away and at times when I am awake late at night if the stars are out I can look up and see the glory they reflect back to their creator. On sunny bright days the sky light offer so much more natural pure light to shine into our unit. But for right now there is no light shining in only a dark greyish color when I peered up distinguishing the white ceilings and the dark sky beyond leaving the heavy splattering of the rain to lull me to sleep.