How do you spend rainy weekends? Do you curl up at home with a book, do you go into work since you can't do anything outside, anyway, or do you just do what you usually do?

Do you like the rain? Does it depress you?

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Answers

I love, love, love rainy days. This is, of course, with the exception of rainy days during the week when I have to be at work.

We have a large screened-in porch with a nice, big swing. Generally on rainy days I just load up the swing with pillows and camp out with a book. Very relaxing. All of the roommates tend to drift toward the porch on rainy days--it's quite large and well-protected--because we have two couches out there and it's a great place to hang out and not feel cooped-up.

The rain only depresses me if it continues for many days in a row--last week, for instance, it rained every single day and by Friday, my entire office was approaching suicide. It affected every single one of us. Rainy days at any other time of the year are enjoyable; in my area of the country, rainy days in spring bring a good likelihood of tornadoes. We've had six in the last two months and so it puts one on guard. It is nice to relax, sit back and listen to the thunderstorm but you have to keep the news on in case it turns out to be particularly bad. Not so enjoyable.

The majority of the day is spent on the swing with my dog. He's terrified of thunder so he suppresses his hyper nature and becomes a lap dog for a day. Quite nice.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

I like rainy days if I don't have a lot of running around to do. For some reason, it likes to rain on days I have to do grocery shopping, and carrying bags in from the car in the rain is no fun at all.

My favorite thing to do when it's nasty outside (rainy or snowy) is bake. The apartment gets all smelling good and, when you're done, you have some nice fresh bread or warm cookies to enjoy while reading.

These days, though, rain or shine, I usually do homework. Stupid grad school.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Rain in the warm seasons is a spot of grace. It doesn't rain often enough in Denver to make you feel really mopey, stare at the sky, wonder if it'll ever in life be blue again, as it does in Connecticut. Here it's so relentlessly sunny that rain means *sigh* you can stay in with a book or loaf in front of the cathode tube of your choice with much less guilt.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

...read a book, watch movies, make tasty treats...and when i had a boyfriend, stay in bed all-ll day...

i need to take a moment now

and mourn for my libido...

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

If it's a week day I hate the rain. Unfortunately, it's a frequent part of life in London, but public transport is even worse when it's been raining.

However, I love rainy weekend days. I sloth around in bed, reading, we watch a bit of telly, and maybe catch a film. I like the idea of not feeling obliged to go out and do anything.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Did he get the BJ or not?

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Really awful rainy days usually means Carl can't work (construction), which means we have time for movies or eating out or goofing off together and we love those days.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

How do I spend rainy days?

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Oooops, sorry all.

How do I spend rainy days?

-- Doing work on the laptop. New job, hopelessly busy. -- Doing homework for the two MBA classes I'm taking this trimester.

Fun, fun.

Sarah

sarah@schismatic.com http://www.schismatic.com/

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Rain makes me really sleepy, so I usually end up taking a lot of naps if my schedule permits. I also love listening to certain music when it's raining--especially piano music, which just seems to go really well with rain. The absolute best rainy-day music ever is Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto #2.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Well, usually I spend them curled up with a book and a cup of tea, a blanket and a blanket of cats, watching the rain fall.

Or Sabs and I go to the movies.

However _this_ rainy day, we spent loading up a 24' U-Haul and unloading it again at our new place.

Whee. "We're just movin' in the rain ... what a glorious feeling ... my feet are soakin' again ..."

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

I basically spend rainy days the same way I spend most other days. On weekends (hopefully I don't have to go out when it's raining, especially when the busses don't run) I puddle around the computer looking up stuff (my favorite random activity nowadays- I really need to start adding the links to my weblog again), or do homework, or read, occasionally watch TV. Lying in bed is good too. (Basically, the same old, same old!) Weekdays it sucks more because I have to slog around to classes- it's really fun on days I work, since my work is approximately in the middle between campus and home and therefore I end up walking to work, then school, then work, then home again, or some combo thereof. Plus I'm often a bit late from traffic ducking and usually make the silly error of "I'll just walk across the quad really fast as a shortcut," then get bogged down in mud. What really bothers me is when I have to bring huge projects to school and it's raining out- though I will admit that the design department is really good about not scheduling big-project classes during winter quarter. I've got to carry a huge wire-and-tissue-paper light around with me all day Thursday, and if it rains then...*KILL!*

No, I do not like rain. I used to like it, back when I lived in a drought area and it was different and exciting, plus my high school had some fun river puddles. But since my freshman year and El Nino- when I came home soaked to the knees most nights and usually decided it was too wet to go to the DC and eat my dinner- and the DC was right next door!- I now hate it. Davis seems wetter than home anyway, and it's for sure more muddy. The campus forms whole lakes, not rivers.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

When the temperature drops, the sky turns dark purple, when I can hear and feel the thunder and see the lightning, it all makes me nostalgic for my childhood. It reminds me of being on the screened porch, sitting in my father's lap and watching the rain. Yeah, I like the rain.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

I like the rain. Generally I prefer to be inside during it, though, or if I must be outside, near some form of shelter. For some reason, whenever I write a story it usually takes place, at least in part, during some inclement weather. I'm becoming more conscious of it lately, but writing about things happening in wet weather comes with surprising unconscious ease nonetheless.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

On rainy days..lets see..,if I'm obligated to carry bags, books and such-then it SUCKS!. Otherwise it reminds me of growing up w/the rain in honolulu hi.(april and may were the best.) :) Im singing in the rain,just drifting in the rain..what a spasticlly wonderful feeling..oops,its sunny again.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2000

Pfthththt! Beth you chicken! You gonna melt or something? ;)

I spent my rainy weekend trying to convince my cousin to go play disc golf with me (didn't work). Ok, maybe that was just an hour of my weekend.

The rest of it was spent outside. In the back yard. In the rain. With a chipper/shredder and a 40 foot pile of fruitless mulberry branches.

God, I sound like someone's grandpa. Walking to school. Uphill both ways. Barefoot in the sn

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2000

I've been having my own Russell Crowe film fest during th rain - saw "Gladiator" on Sat afternoon and have been watching only RC videos the rest of the time, for days on end. Usually I just do housework or read or get "crafty" when it rains, but I'm liking this film fest too much for that. :)

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2000

I hate rain, unless it's a real storm with trees getting blown down and flooding and lightning and stuff. Then I watch out the window and get all excited. But we don't have storms like that very often.

What I do is crab about it all day. I don't have any special rainy day activities. I do what I usually do unless I was planning to go to a flea market or lie in the hammock.

What I did Sunday was to go to the sauna place for a few hours (and crab because all I could do was sauna, not lie out on the deck as I'd planned) which was actually nice. Then I came home and got a bee in my bonnet about fixing things around the house, so we fixed the dripping faucet in the bathroom and the ceiling fan that had lost its pull cord. That felt good.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2000

Get up, make tea, find a book, and sit in bed and read until my stomach starts to rumble. Pick up the phone and make long distance calls to much loved friends while scrambling eggs. Pick an Audrey Hepburn movie from the shelf and pop it into the VCR. Enjoy while eating eggs. Try not to sigh too much at how divine Audrey is.

(If there is a hunk o' man present, constantly interupt movie dialog with both random Hepburn facts and many smooches)

Pick up the cat and force her to enjoy some petting and lap time. When she actually settles down, decide to get up and get some ice cream to round out breakfast.

Repeat as many times as possible before the end of the day.

Maybe throw in some laundrey. Maybe clean the litterbox. Maybe do some dishes.

Getting dressed optional. Washing hair optional. Painting toenails not optional.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2000

Basically what everyone else already said: book, tea, fire in the heart, man to cuddle with. The problem is I have a work-aholic fiance, and when he isn't working himself to death on the weekends, he's usualy fragging the crap out of somebody or other on Half-Life or Team Fortress. It's heard for me to get him to just sit and relax with me because he gets kinda itchy and fidgetty after a while.

I always want to sit by the fire and read to each other on rainy days, but I've found the only way to get him to sit still is to give him back-rubs. Back rubs will immobilize my man anytime anywhere. So he does all the reading, and I do all the massaging, and in about a half an hour he has a sore jaw, and I have sore thumbs. So he goes back to Half-Life, and I get to read by the fire alone. Sigh. Poor little unloved me.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000