Rain

Pardon my French, but it's absolutely pissing down with rain. I'm not usually one to complain about rain, and good thing, since I live in Amsterdam.  But this isn't any ordinary rain; it's the kind that sounds like a freight train from inside the house and gets you soaked to the skin outside the house, especially if, like me, your 5 year old Gortex jacket took this week to stop being Gortex-y.  Gortex has a shelf life, and once you are past it, the jacket becomes as rainproof as a dress shirt.

Anywhoo, I took M to school this morning and forgot my intention to stop by Blocker to pick up garbage bags.  Last night I took out the trash (I almost never do this but Peter wanted to iron some shirts for a business trip to Paris today and it was already 11, so I decided to be nice and take the trash downstairs).  I wasn't nice enough to put the bag in the trash, however, and when I woke up this morning I thought, "how nice, Peter put the trash back together."  Fifteen minutes and three particularly messy bits of trash later I realized he hadn't put a bag in, and since I never take out the trash I didn't immediately recognize that the reason was we are completely out of trash bags.  And, thanks to our environmentally conscious bag-bringing, we don't really have a whole lot of plastic shopping bags in the house, either. So, I'm waiting for a break in the weather to head out to Blocker.

The view from my window when I started this post.

I haven't quite identified my relationship with the weather here, but it's shaping up to be one of mostly ignoring it. I don't know if it's a regular thing or just lately, but it seems like the forecast is almost never right. Case in point last week, which was supposed to be rainy all week.  Actually, we had some really gorgeous weather with a few sprinkles.  We even attended an outdoor birthday party on Saturday, which was forecast as a wash out.  For a forecast of about 10 rainy days, we actually got to the playground a whole lot.  A friend here recommended not paying much mind to the weather forecast and carrying on with whatever you want to do.  I've been following that advice for about 6 weeks now and haven't really been disappointed (or significantly rained on).

OK, so it's not incredibly sunny, but it is noticeably brighter and nothing is falling from the sky.

So, now it's brightening up and I think it's my chance to head off.  Here 10 minutes can make a huge difference with the weather here.