RAINY DAY WOMEN

For weeks now high temperatures, generally in the nineties, have followed us through the country with an unremitting grasp. I thought the Tetons would give us relief but we arrived in the midst of a heat wave, high eighties, near as damnit to ninety—until last night. Treating ourselves to a rather fine dinner at our favorite restaurant in town, we stepped outside to one of those rains that’s neither too heavy to put you at a standstill nor light enough to permit you to dash from awning to awning without an umbrella. By the time dinner was over, temperatures were down, a respectable chill was in the air, and lightening was flashing as if the good Lord couldn’t make up his mind as to whether it was night or day. As Designated Driver, I slipped on my driving glasses, hit the windscreen (windshield?) wipers, and headed for home.

Blindness comes in many forms. A combination of dead bug remains, badly cleared up, with the bawling skies was bad enough, but then the specters began to appear—those ghostly bodies of fog that dance upon the road blocking your view. No one in front of me to mark my way with red tail lights, I had someone on my back probably thankful I was leading him, while putting pressure on me to keep going. The sheet lightening flashes were no help, nor were road markings in worn yellow. Cristal gave advice on steering, since her eyes are far better than mine, and we turned with relief onto the Moose-Wilson Road only to see flashing red and blue lights. I held the steering wheel to a straight lane at thirty-five mph, passed the sheriff, and eventually turned with huge relief into our own road.

This morning the temperatures hovered in the low sixties while fog hovered on the hills, and flattened grass out back revealed elk or, more likely, moose had taken refuge from the storm. Maybe he, too, was frightened by the specters.