At the risk of over-praising every single weblog I read (although really, what's the harm in that), some people have a marvelous way with words. I was caught in that same storm last night... I left work around 7:30 p.m., and I'd been in the car for 15 minutes. I was about halfway to my destination, a friend's apartment less than two miles away from mine, when it suddenly began gushing water from the sky. It really did seem like a waterfall coming straight down -- the drops weren't splattering individually the way rain, even hard rain, usually does. There were no drops, period, just a straight sheet of water. It actually looked pale grey-white, almost reflective.

I had a little second of panic when the gas light in my car went on (it has a habit of doing that at very inopportune times, just to scare me... my gas tank has that typical sloshing problem where it'll register nothing on a steep hill and then go back up to half a tank on a decline. I suppose it's normal, but that little golden yellow light scares the heck out of me, forcing me to conjure up images of myself, bedraggled and desperate, stranded on the shoulder of the Beltway waiting for a prince -- in the form of AAA -- to come to my rescue.) Anyway. Soon after the light's appearance, I pulled over to a gas station and stood under that big awning thing while refilling my car. It was such an odd feeling to be standing outside yet out of the rain, feeling its spray but not really getting wet, protected but two inches away from the downpour. Rain is incredible sometimes... not to mention good for the outlook of one's prospective organic vegetables...