The Drizzle of the Century

Image credit: Joe Daly

As predicted in yesterday’s feature, Hurricane Hilary was a dud.

At around 8 p.m., while out at a show, a high-pitched buzz erupted across the outdoor patio where people were waiting out the atonal squall of the opening band. It was a mobile phone alert, blasted out to presumably all residents of Southern California, announcing a “State of Emergency” in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Hilary.

Puzzled, we all seemed to look up at the sky together, wondering what we were missing. It was a balmy summer evening, with a light breeze wafting through the trees. The skies were indeed grey but not the kind of grey that announces torrential rain. Just grey.

Anyhoo, an email from the half marathon organizers arrived shortly after the alert. Due to the State of Emergency, the race was officially cancelled. Not even flipped to virtual — just done and dusted. Admittedly I felt some relief and maybe even a grain of vindication for reading the tea leaves correctly and switching to virtual that morning. Of course, now I’m the proud owner of two medals (the half marathon medal and the Triple Crown medal), for races that never happened. I’ll go out and run 13.1 this week just to get my karma back in alignment.

But the rain was the big story. Or the general lack of any type of rain that might plausibly fit into the nasty, race-cancelling category. We had a steady drizzle punctuated by interludes of zero precipitation. At around four p.m., the volume picked up to something appreciable but nothing that would get in the way of a dude running out to pick up a pizza or anything. Just twenty minutes of ordinary rain - the kind experienced by the rest of the world in ways that don’t involve storm trackers and State of Emergency alerts.

So I seized the opportunity to plow through four episodes of 100 Foot Wave, The Covenant, a bit of reading and some bass. The dogs were fully on board with a lazy, do-nothing Sunday. It was actually pretty great.