brightlotusmoon | ...and then, it started to rain

When I was growing up, in 1980s Brooklyn, NY, there wasn't a whole lot of entertainment outside of my imagination. Our apartment was tiny, and luckily we had a huge backyard with trees and gardens, and my father was the superintendent of all three connected apartment buildings (Quentin Road on Kings Highway), and I was the only child in all three buildings, so I got to come and go in that yard as I pleased. All the neighbors knew my parents as artists who painted murals on local buildings, and they all babysat me at one point or another. My television watching was limited to Saturday mornings and movies I watched with my parents. I had books. I had lots of books. My parents read to me every single night, sitting on my bed surrounded by stuffed animals (I refused to sleep without every single stuffed animal with me; my bed was against a wall and that wall was lined with toys). When I got old enough to read with them -- at age three -- it became a game. Dad or Mom would read one chapter, I'd read the next (We had a lot of fun with Dragonworld, which was nearly 600 pages of epic fantasy, and I was six years old). We played lots of games. One of those games was modified by my cousin Luciano, son of my oldest uncle Luciano. I was still the baby of the family. Cousin Luciano would visit or we'd visit him and his wife, Wendy, a famous entertainer. While Wendy made me hats and costumes out of paper plates, we'd all sit around telling "And Then..." stories. Someone would start out with a story, and after a certain point, would turn to the next person and say, "And then..." and the new storyteller would pick up with "and then..." and continue the story. Cousin Luciano and Wendy started the idea of interjecting into every story the line "And then... it started to rain. And it rained, and it rained, and it rained." No matter what the story was about (and it was usually fantasy, because I was obsessed with unicorns and dragons and faeries), at one point or another, someone would start with the rain. It always rained.
I didn't need television, really, because of the "And Then..." stories. I miss that.

Last night, storm clouds piled on top of one another, trying to blot out the sun.
And then... it started to rain.
And it rained, and it rained, and it rained.
I was alone in the house, with the cats. Lightning makes me nervous and paranoid, although rationally I know I shouldn't panic so much during rainstorms, because the rain would put out any fires. But I'm paranoid about fire. Thankfully, Adam shares this paranoia, which is why there is a long, thick rope tied to our bedroom window, and why Adam eventually wants to build a sort of fire escape. Meanwhile, all I think about is how to get the cats out that window safely.
As thunder crashed and lightning flashed and rain lashed, I sat up in bed unable to sleep. Jupiter hopped up onto the bed, with a plastic bottle cap in his mouth, asking to play fetch. I played with him for a bit, until he settled down by my feet and curled up. A few minutes later, Luna came into the room, jumped onto the bed, walked onto my chest, nuzzled my face, and settled down next to Jupiter, curling up against him. I finally managed to fall asleep just before midnight.
And it rained, and it rained, and it rained.
Still raining.

It's raining in Brooklyn too. I wonder how Luciano and Wendy are doing.