The night before last I woke up to what I thought was wind.

That’s what we get here sometimes.  Wild, whipping pockets of harsh wind that blow the cushions off the rockers on our balcony.

Lest you think Denver is like Annie Proulx’s literary Wyoming plains, we live on the seventh floor of a high-rise building.  It’s always a bit windy up here.

But it wasn’t wind I heard.  It was something I’ve not had in a long while.  It was rain.  And it continued.

At eight a.m., it was dark and cloudy and coming down just beautifully.  At 10, at noon and at three.  Still raining.

Everyone was talking about it.

Meeting after meeting yesterday people were saying how happy they were.  ”Isn’t it beautiful outside?”  We said to one another.

A project manager I work with said he prepared to drive his kids to school as they normally ride their bikes.  When he offered, his second- and fourth-graders both begged him to pedal in the rain.  ”We’re not made of sugar, Dad,” the fourth-grader said.  ”Rain is good for us.”

Indeed it is!