Same old thing as yesterday.

Thanks, Sting, I knew you’d understand.  It’s raining today.  I live in Texas, which being the size of about half the rest of the United States (we exaggerate sometimes here) has several of its own climates.  The one I have is semi-arid which means mostly desert except when the weather feels like throwing stupid stuff your way.  Like rain and snow.  I don’t really like either of these, unless the snow is so significant it cancels work and school.  Then snow is like, my pal.

Fun fact: There are more suicides in Seattle,Washington than in Alaska cause light bounces off of snow, but rain is just gray and dreary.  There’s a source for this, but I’m not looking it up.

Found on a Seattle travel brochure.

It’s raining right now.  Everyone is supposed to be happy about this because sometimes we are so dry a loose spark can set off massive dry grass explosions.  But it messes with my asthma and my depression – a double combo so to speak.  I cough and I’m bummed.  And I can be bummed when it is bright and sunny (how dare it be bright and sunny?) so I don’t need actual dreary.  I don’t think I’m the only one who dislikes rain.  I’m pretty sure rain is at least partly why England was off conquering other nations once upon a time.  They didn’t want to be at home.

There’s even a song about rain everyone knows.  “Rain, rain, go away.”

“Rain, rain, go away

Come again some other day.”  (like never)

I learned it as a kid, and I remembered there were some whack lyrics about an old man in a coma, but I wasn’t sure what they were so I actually researched some for this one.  According to my authentic source, Wikipedia, the modern English song dates back to the 17th century when James Howell wrote “Raine raine goe to Spain: faire weather come againe.”  I like this version.  Hey, bad weather, go to Spain.  We hate those guys.  I wish my rain to go to political conventions.  Either party.  Please do so when the candidates are out there speaking.  I’d love to see the Donald’s hair piece wash away.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain – suck it Spaniards!

But the Wikipedia article didn’t touch on the old dude, so I had to do more searching.  I found an educational site that, predictably, screwed up the lyrics making it “Rain, rain go away, Mommy / Daddy / Sister / the dog / Donald Trump wants to play” but that was lame and not the real song at all.  Boo.  I had to add in “the old man is snoring” to get a positive result.  Turns out the song can be called “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” as well as “Rain, Rain, Go Away.”  So here is the version they didn’t make PC for today’s children, but which was perfectly fine for me to learn.

It’s raining
It’s pouring
The old man is snoring.

He bumped his head
When he went to bed
And he couldn’t get up in the morning

Cue the chorus “Rain, rain go away.”  Just – wait, what?  I always wondered about that part.  I mean, what the heck does a snoring old man who gets a concussion and is now in a coma have to do with rain?  Why put this in a song for kids?  Were we not traumatized enough by the mutilation of the three blind mice?  Well, I say traumatized, but we were kids and took great delight in singing about chopping off rodent tails and unconscious old dudes in comas – who are lying in the rain?   But kids are evil.  As adults we should be wondering – who is this old guy and won’t someone shut off the camera and go get him medical attention?

Unless it’s foul play.  Now I can believe hitting your head on the headboard of your bed hard enough to cause a concussion because I routinely smack my head and other body parts into things on accident.  But while I’m no doctor, I think you really shouldn’t go back to sleep after this.  Unless someone MADE you.  Like say a disgruntled wife who was bugged by her snoring husband so hit him in the head when he went to bed so that he couldn’t get up in the morning.  Consciousness go away, come again another day . . .

(Or it might have been the mice?) “Here’s for your wife cutting off our tails with a carving knife!”

It should be noted that I found the real lyrics on another teaching site that advises teachers after singing the first part to ask the kids to put their names into the song.  “Blah blah old man dead, rain, rain go away, little (Madison, Madisyn, Maddisson) wants to play.”  Yes, let’s put our names into a song about an unfortunate old dude.  Sounds fun to me!  Go on, little (Brayden, Britin, Braxton) sing!  It’s fun!

And we wonder why our children grow up to be stuff like serial killers and politicians.  But I digress.  It’s raining here and the water is seeping under my house where wood will probably rot and suck us into a giant hole one day.  Maybe I could make a song about it?

As this post was inspired partly by Merbear’s inspirational Annie post, I feel I should give her credit here while stealing the cartoon she found.

Have a nice day, rain or shine.  And pay no attention to Eddie Rabbit, who “loves a rainy night”.  He clearly never heard of that poor old guy.

Alice