A Month of Rainbows

Hey Seattle: did we really just experience the wettest six months on record?!

So, the other day I took my dog Cosmo to the vet (again), because he needed a new microchip implanted. Apparently the old one is not going to work in Europe. So all my animals are getting outfitted with an ISO chip.

That day was rainy, as most days are, but the afternoon skies were clearing up. Or at least it looked like they were clearing up. But then no sooner than Cosmo and I got inside the vet’s office, it started pouring again! Not that comforting drizzle that I actually often enjoy in Seattle, but a torrential downpour that scared the poor dog (he does frighten easily).

I felt pretty defeated, watching all that water pour out of the sky – again – and that’s exactly what I said to the vet technician.

“Again?”

However – she’s pretty much my favorite – she looked outside and exclaimed:

“I know! It’s been a month of rainbows!”

Bless her heart.

She’s right, you know. We’ve been having lots and lots of rainbows, because it pours one minute and then the sun peaks out and then it’s back to the downpour. Not the gray steady Seattle drizzle that I sorta love, but the confusing switcheroo of getting soaked one minute and then slathering on the sunscreen the next.

But even though it’s been a little bit of both, I am somehow just focused on the rain. Not paying much attention to the rainbows lately.

It’s all been about the move, the packing, the back and forth with the kids’ schools, the visas, the relocation agent in Denmark, the pet relocation agent in Austin, the lining up of contractors (so that we can fix up our house and sell it), and the fact that I’ve been sick for almost three weeks. I’ve been too sick to cook and eating a lot of greasy take out. I haven’t been sleeping. I haven’t been going outside. I haven’t even been drinking wine! I’ve been coughing not knowing if it’s the dust or the nerves or some sort of respiratory infection.

I finally went to the doctor the other day and she noted I had a low-grade fever and raspiness in my lungs. She diagnosed me with the dreaded pneumonia. Got some antibiotics and a cough syrup that promised (and delivered) to knock me out. Luckily I never take antibiotics (I save them for things like pneumonia) and these worked like magic almost immediately.

Once I no longer felt like I’m about to keel over, I made food from scratch and even the kids must have been glad to see chard on their plates again. I finished packing for the Copenhagen trip (my daughter and I are leaving today!) and I almost finished going through the boxes I’ve been keeping in storage downstairs.

And I started to notice the rainbows.