random thoughts – Day 1,270 – (Friday) – wall flowers and raindrops

It was comfortable to chilly in the 4th floor fortress today and hot outside. I enjoyed the heat as I stood awkwardly in the parking lot waiting for a branch team member to arrive to pick up the cornhole boards for an event on Saturday.

A colleague from our facilities team passed by during my wait and we chatted about the shirtless guy across the street on the bench and the sweat wicking qualities of some fabrics that can make it feel cooler than not wearing a shirt. That evolved into a chat about cold weather wear and brands from Nordic countries like Helly Hansen (Norway) and the merits of polypropylene, and Finns dressed in white on skis fighting against the Russians. Yes, I was waiting outside leaning on the brick wall for a while. 

Wall flowers.

The chatting was lovely, as were the colorful flowers in the planters that run atop the brick wall along the parking lot. Even the heat was pleasant. The unpleasant part was that the entire time out there, I needed to use the rest room, because when I saw the message declaring “I’ll be there in 10 minutes” 15 minutes had already elapsed since it was sent, so I skipped the bathroom trip, grabbed the cornhole boards and raced outside. 

Later, around 2:45, clouds had rolled in darker and the weather had become louder. Thunder rumbled and rain began to hit the skylights. It was so dark outside that the streetlights came on. Two of us in the office had just finished making hot cocoa when the rain began tapping on the roof and skylights and lightning flickered outside like a lethargic strobe light.

Getting brighter after the storm.

Soon, four of us were gathered near the arched window and commenting on the weather. Meanwhile, emails were coming in about power outages in several towns in our network. By 3:20, it was beginning to get brighter outside.

Social media posts showed downed trees and utility poles. I wondered what I would find at The BungaLowell when I arrived home. The delivery tracker from Amazon included a photo of the package with the drapes and blouse delivered safely in the enclosed porch around noontime, so there was no worry needed there. The source of wonderment was the basement and front yard, both of which have experienced various levels of water coverage during recent precipitation events. 

When I went outside at 5:00, it was hard to tell that a couple hours earlier it had rained. The concrete sidewalk was dry, as was most of the street. At home, there were few clues that the rain had happened. Fortunately, there were no downed trees along the route, and the basement was puddle free. It felt like a victory. I thanked the basement for holding fast.