Christmas means one thing to Californians -rain. The rainy season always seems so far away in September, and October usually sets records for the daily high temperature. Frequently, November and December won't bring much rain to speak of. That means we expect the harsh cold rains from Alaska to swoop down around January.
So, what does that movie theater have to do with our winter rains? Not much, but it's fun to talk first about my contribution to the lights of Christmas.
That's the way a movie theater should look after dark, right? The light show before the light show inside. But the lights were out recently.
I was in the parking lot and took a photograph of the marquee well after dark. Actually, I was photographing the license plate POPE. I erased it here, since who would believe I actually photographed the Pope during Christmas? Would have to be a Photoshop creation, right?
But the lights were off at the movie theater. That license plate was brighter than the marquee. Was the power cut off in connection with a construction project nearby? Maybe. A company is building apartments next door. Correction, luxury apartments. They never put up a sign that reads, "Coming In 2014, Ordinary Apartments."
I visited the theater ticket window and asked the fellow behind the glass about the dark theater marquee and facade. He told me the lights were turned on automatically by computer, so I could expect them around 6:45 pm. That seemed late, but we had changed from Daylight Savings Time recently. Maybe the computers were stuck in the past. My backup camera is stuck in the past, too, but that's because I haven't dialed in the change.
A couple of days later, the lights were on bright. Very nice. I can't take sole credit here, maybe I was the 20th customer to mention it, but they obviously dialed in the change to turn them on sooner. Now, on to the rain.
So, far, we seem to be getting the normal winter pattern of rain. A couple of days of rain, and then a day or two of clearing and walking-around weather. The satellite weather maps in winter often show a line of storm fronts reaching across the Pacific toward Alaska. You can see the one that will arrive Friday, the one that's ready for Monday, the Thursday storm, and so forth. Can't complain, though, the Bay Area gets its water from the Sierra Nevada snow.
The rains stripped the autumn leaves away for good, and color photographs now look like black and white.
As anemic as winter skies can look, you can still find color on the streets.
Looks as if somebody poured a few boxes of Trix into the puddle.
A construction crew's power cords on the pavement of a driveway.
Nobody waits outside for the train today.
The Amtrak brings a little color to the station.
But there was color in the air after three days of cold showers. Forgot I had the flash setting on, so that white blob is a raindrop.
A passing family saw me photographing the rainbow, so mom got some photos. When I said that was actually a double rainbow, the kids were delighted.
The rainbow touched down on the other side of the railroad tracks and the train signals.
Almost seems you can climb that laddder and catch a ride on the light.
This was the best rainbow I've photographed in years. Not the best setting -this is what you'd like to photograph with the Golden Gate Bridge or Half Dome in Yosemite- but it was the longest-lasting and richest-looking, and it had no gaps for several minutes.
That was the 22nd of December. Glad we weren't all destroyed by that asteroid/Planet X/earthquake/solar kill shot/nuclear attack after the Mayan calendar ended. The rain came back and stayed with us all day on Christmas. For shoppers on the 22nd, though, they got to see some Christmas lights early.