A summer day in New Orleans

I had a little time to kill this afternoon, and I decided to get gas for the car while the needle was still hovering above "Empty."

The temperature had been in the 90s, and no rain was in the forecast I had heard on the noon news, so I punched the button on the pump to get the deluxe wash,too. “See the attendant,” a pop-up on the screen told me. I filled my tank and went inside the store to do what I had been told.

“The car wash is broken,” a dark fellow with what I took to be a thick Pakistani accent told me. I had not heard him clearly. “What?” I asked. A lighter skinned man behind the immigrant said more clearly, “The car wash is broken.”

Another day in New Orleans, I thought, not altogether happily, and walked outside and drove away.

An hour or so later, I was sitting in the den reading, and I heard rain against the window pane. “Lucky for me the wash was broken,” I thought. (Had I gotten the wash, of course, I would have muttered, "Just my luck.")

I should have second-guessed the weatherman. Earlier, I had looked up at the sky, and it was filled with great fluffy creatures: crouching rabbits, begging poodles and a full-bodied naked woman lying on her side.

After the rain had stopped, I took the dogs out into the steam, and we walked three-quarters around the block when the rain began again. I had had the foresight to take an umbrella, but the dogs had not, so they needed drying when we got home. Still, as soon as I had worked them over with beach towels, they shook whatever wet was left on them on me and the furniture.

By then, the rain had stopped again, and we have had no more since.

And no more cumulus rabbits, poodles, or – I am sad to say – full-bodied naked women.

Nuthin' but blue skies.