I wasn’t prepared for the rain

         Just as Roland is about to leave this morning, Jenna informs me that she has drama club.  Her drama club has been meeting each Wednesday morning for about the last two months.  But I had forgotten.

         She was dressed minus her shoes.  I was still in my pajamas.  Roland doesn’t like to drop her off so early and have her wait in the dark by herself. 

         It does seem odd that we would have him drop us off at 6:30 – an hour before drama club starts – but we have to leave about 5 minutes after Roland just in order to get on a bus and still have time to walk from the bus stop to the front of the school – which is what we had to do this morning.

         Actually it was more like ten minutes.  I did try to hurry myself as Jenna stood at the front door waiting for me.  I threw on a sweatshirt and my coat and we booked it to the bus stop.  As we were walking I could feel the moisture in the air.

         “Is it snowing?” I asked.  It felt like snow though I could not see anything falling. 

         “I think it’s just rain.” Jenna commented.

         It was dark.  I don’t like walking in the streets when it is that dark.

         “I hope I don’t need my umbrella.”

         It actually wasn’t so wet that I would need an umbrella or any rain gear.  I didn’t have time to return for it either way.  I just hoped it wouldn’t pick up at all.

         My mom had a very nice winter coat that lived in Sunny’s shed after we had moved mom into assisted living.  After mom passed away, Sunny gave me mom’s brown coat. I’ve been wearing it ever since.  It is beautiful and it is warm. 

Last year I had sprayed a rainproof protection on it, but have not done anything with it this year. I had two hoods on my head when the bus arrived, but let them fall off after I boarded.

Normally I remove my backpack, which then allows me to remove my coats as needed.  But I was too lazy.  I kept everything on.  The driver had overly warm air blasting.  In less than five blocks, I thought I was going to die.

After we got off the bus, we continued our hustle toward the school and made good timing.  We arrived ten minutes before she had to be there.

I took off my backpack and my coat and removed my sweatshirt, rolled it into my backpack.  Put my coat back on, returned my backpack and parted ways.  I walked towards the college – which is not my usual way for returning home, but I was walking from the front of the school instead of where I am normally behind it.

I was able to cross the street only moments before the bus turned, and so did not have to wait. But I did have to wait for each transfer (two of the routes seemed to be running behind) and had traded the coat for the sweatshirt back to both sweatshirt and coat by the time I arrived at the bus stop where Jenna and I had started out this morning.

The final leg of the trip was the wettest – between the bus stop and my house.  Also the shortest.  Had I known it was going to rain so hard, I would have taken the green coat – perhaps an umbrella.  But it was just that final 3-5 minutes.  It hadn’t been raining at either transfer – and I actually got two more chapters read.  So that was nice. 

Thank you, Mother Nature, for holding off, as I was not prepared this morning.  Not totally, anyway.