Wet

Rain. After a brief few days, the rains are here again. Not that I mind. On the contrary. The downside, of course,, is that this being Sunday, it threw our regular tennis session with our China friends off. Last week was the same and we ended up driving up and down Livermore looking at new and old homes for sale. This week, we hung out in Stoneridge Mall. I miss the tennis, not because I play well. I don't. But it gave me the exercises I need. At least we have yoga on Wednesdays. I must say the yoga is tough. Much harder than you would think. Last week was especially bad for me. It was worse that the other time when I had slight vertigo and almost threw up. This time, I almost blacked out mid-way through. The moving up and down played havoc with my low blood pressure and my brain could not cope for a few brief moments. I thought I was going to make a fool of myself and go into a faint. Forthunately, I did not and the blood came back to nourish the grey and white matter. And I made it through the whole session.

I got side-tracked. Back to the rain. It is going to be an entirely wet week. But it is not so cold anymore. Spring is pushing winter out and the flowers are beginning to bloom. The rains have made the hills on both sides of the valley just beautiful - a luxuriant expanse of green that extends as far as the eye can see at the intervals when nothing blocks your view. In some areas, you can see yellow wild flowers, probably daisies interspersed with dandelions. Quite rare in this district. The reservoirs are slowly filling up from their extremely low levels but California is not out of the drought and water rationing still looms as a possibility.

Sometimes I miss the wild strong thunderous rains of Singapore. You never see any lightning here or hear any thunder. The rain falls but lightly and you never really get drenched. I enjoyed the rains tremendously in my youth. I remember sitting on our balcony looking at people falling into drains during floods and pots and pans floating out from the kampong attap houses. And mum opening up our home to the Malays whose houses were under water. I remember walking with my best friend in the rain in the RGS uniforms to the bus stop to catch the bus home or all the way to Orchard Road, feeling so happy to be thoroughly soaked, enjoying the feel of water on our faces and the shirt and pinaforms sticking to our skins. The rain here is nothing like that. It is hard to get that wet here, much more likely to catch a huge cold because it is after all, still winter.

My interview with HR for conversion is this week. Wish me luck!