Some heavy downpour earlier this morning here along California’s northern coast, but now after a couple of hours of light, there’s an occasional burst of bright sunshine — from my back patio, sharp ray-beams slicing from behind thick-black, and ominous-looking-clouds is most-freakin’ awesome.
And the noise level adjusts, too. People scurry around to accomplish tasks in good weather. Foot traffic spikes at the local shopping center during these pretty-weather episodes.
This particular storm is expected to last until the middle of next week and we’re forecast for way-more rain, but not as much as southeast from here — the northern Sacramento valley is experiencing a ‘blustery weekend‘ with lots of rain and snow.
Out here right on the Pacific coast, though, beyond some periodic heavy rain and wind, the weather’s fairly benign, in relative to a shitload of other places in this country and on this globe, the environment here is pretty good.
Some of the most-beautiful weather I’ve ever experienced takes place for a short space via these big ‘holes’ in winter storms up here, like right now — sometimes in these little respites, the sky can get crystal clear, and all these wet objects appear pock-marked with little sparkles in bright sunshine — and for a few minutes there’s a way-attractive calm, sort of like the eye of a hurricane.
Soon enough, though, the far wall of rain reaches us, and according to this morning’s satellite images, a big green clump is just southwest heading this way — back to boots and rain jackets.
Life beyond weather this past week or so has also been ‘most-awesome,’ but in a most-sorrowful, negative way.
An infection-like aurora of violent crazy — and even more-violent crazy was right during wing-nut, all-around-nasty asshole Wayne LaPierre’s cruel and delusional rant yesterday against everybody/everything on earth but the NRA, another terrible, but familiar drama was playing out on a rural Pennsylvania road.
A gunman killed three people — one an old lady ‘decorating a church hall for a children’s Christmas party‘ — and wounded three state troopers before cops killed him.
(Illustration found here).
Pennsylvania authorities have yet to release/figure out a motive — another familiar strain to the infection.
HuffPost has an article about gun death since Sandy Hook — terrifying.
This calamitous bullshit-infection has even contaminated my neck of the woods, my little sparkles in bright sunshine.
In Fortuna, a little town just a bit south of where I’m at, officials canceled classes at the local high school on Friday after receiving “information” of an armed student who could “…possibly engage in acts of violence.”
From the Lost Coast Outpost:
The Fortuna Police Department and high school administrators worked late into the night to complete a thorough investigation and determined that the information was false.
Through the course of the investigation, it was determined that other students had also became aware of this information and were discussing bringing weapons to school for self-protection should an incident occur on campus.
However, the local newspaper of record (not a good one), the Times-Standard, reported this morning the part about the kids bringing guns to school “wasn’t the case” — FPD Sgt. Charles Ellebrech: “Unfortunately, with social media, things get out fast, and change.”
FHS junior Nicole Tompkins hadn’t heard about the gun ‘information‘ until a school robocall explained why classes were cancelled on Friday: “We just thought it was because teachers wanted a day off, because the world was going to end,” she said.
No, not yet — the rain has returned with a vengeance — pounding on the roof, pattering hard against the front window — and I heard some way-loud thunder just a few minutes ago.
Appears the ‘sparkle‘ has gone off the crazy.