Rainy Days and Monday

After three and a half weeks without rain in the Chicago area, the skies finally opened up on Monday just as my wife and I exited Costco, $250 poorer than when we entered. The rain was such a welcome site that we opted to get wet and load up the car, but after arriving home the weather got more serious with a deluge of rain, wind gusts, hail and tornado warnings – none of which, I might add, had been forecasted by our weather apps, which had merely predicted a “chance of rain.”

As we hunkered down in our basement, I marked the occasion of this wonderful, beautiful rain (granted, with a side of danger) by playing a recording of The Carpenters’ song, “Rainy Days and Mondays,” as it was both raining and a Monday! How perfect! Well, the gods were having none of that nonsense, and one minute into Karen Carpenter’s glorious delivery, the power went out, flashed back on for a second, went out again, flashed on again, and then went out for good. There would be no music for the time being.

Once the worst of the storm had passed, I headed upstairs and I took matters into my own hands, sitting at the piano to pluck out the 1971 tune penned by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams. The chords were no problem, but I botched the melody pretty badly. It brought to mind how much easier it had been to play the song when I could just hide behind my daughter Jessica’s singing voice, who performed the tune with me from time to time when she was around 12 years old. Playing chords while someone else took the melody? No problem. Melody on the fly? Not so much.

On one occasion in 2009, Jessica and I performed “Rainy Days and Mondays” for my mother and her husband. Jessica had – and still has – a very good voice and vocal technique. We picked the proper key, I played the intro, and she took it away from there. I added some silly backup vocals behind my daughter’s controlled performance, but overall it sounded good.

After we finished the tune, my mother said, “Oh Jessica, why didn’t you use your pretty voice?”

Now, it would take years of psychoanalysis to understand what prompted that remark. I had gotten used to callous comments from my mother over the years, but this one left me dumbfounded. I stood up, looked at Jessica with eyebrows raised, wiggled my finger toward her and said, “Follow me.”

When Jessica recounts the story today, she says that she thought she was in trouble, that she had possibly embarrassed me in front of my mother, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

We walked to the back room of our house, I crouched down to her eye level and said, “Do you know what tactless means?” She said she didn’t. “It’s when you say something rude, something unkind. You sang beautifully, and what Grandma said was tactless.”

Jessica and I will occasionally recount this story when reminiscing about her childhood. It was one of my prouder parenting moments and one of my mother’s weaker moments. But Jessica wasn’t deterred. She went on to sing throughout high school and college, and even made a career as a music therapist for half a decade.

“Rainy Days and Mondays.” I love that this wonderful song that accompanied me during my early childhood now has a personal history with my daughter. However, I’d be much obliged if the next time I choose to play the record, the skies let it go to its completion.

July 2012: What a difference a year makes

A year ago this week the brittle grass had all but given up.  Vegetables that had flourished briefly in the spring clung to life only because of daily watering sessions that both my wife and I were already tired of providing.  Normally, we’d hit a wall by early August, but this year, after having reached the 80s eight days in March, after breaking high temperature records twice in May, and after enduring the sixth warmest and fifth driest June on record, we’d already had it.  And it was just beginning.  Patience was wearing thin.  Tempers were short.

On July 1, I road home on my bike from my Sunday morning gig at Elmhurst Presbyterian Church, and on the way noticed a distinct line of foreboding clouds to the west.  As I neared home, I saw people watering their flowers and I shouted out, “There’s rain coming.”  I made it home, and my son and I took out lawn chairs in the back yard to watch the approaching storm, a welcome sight after such a dry June.

We lasted about thirty seconds.

The violence of our annual Storm of the Century forced my family and me inside and into the basement, where we could hear from outside the cracking of tree limbs, followed by the all-too-familiar sound of our electricity shutting off, as our smoke alarms yelped out a short, high-pitched siren of protest before falling silent.

A half an hour later, the sun was out, and our neighborhood spent that afternoon surveying the destruction, comparing stories and pulling branches to the curbs, careful to avoid those areas that had downed power lines (my house was one such area).  The destruction outside was far short of the images we’ve seen recently from Missouri and Oklahoma, but for the residence of north Elmhurst, this was close enough.  My poor tree in the back yard had shed yet another limb (one a year for the past three years), striking my neighbor's newly installed roof and gutters.  Neighbors across the street had a new hole in their roof, and down the street stood an invisible SUV, fully-encased in the branches of a downed limb.

And then the heat came.  The whir of generators could be heard all around us, a constant drone that only added to our frustration, because none of the sound was to our benefit.  We emptied our freezer and refrigerator and took the contents to our neighbors who still had electricity a block away, and as we put the last of our groceries into their freezer, their electricity went out.  It seemed that saving the chicken we’d purchased at Costco was not to be.

Our son was leaving for camp the next morning, and we’d planned on making a meat loaf for his “Last Supper,” but now we had to improvise.  We got in the car, heading down Roosevelt, expecting to find a restaurant open somewhere.  There was.  One.  Almost seven miles away.  Boston Market experienced what was probably its busiest Sunday evening ever.  From miles around, people had flocked for roasted chicken, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn, as the storm had shut down power as far west as Wheaton, through Glen Ellyn and Lombard and into Villa Park and Elmhurst. 

I summarized the mayhem in a text to my brother who was out of town…

Lines down. Transformer on fire.  Poles off kilter.  The works.  No flooding though.  If it weren’t for the heat I wouldn’t really care.

Ah, but there was heat.  That evening our second floor reached 94 degrees, as temperatures outside his 98.  On Tuesday we hit 96 with a low of 77 and still no electricity, and my wife, who was enjoying a day working in air conditioned bliss, texted me at home…

Any progress?

I texted back…

If u consider nothing as progress, then yes.  There’s progress.

That evening I decided to get the hell out of my hell-like home and go to York High School for a community band rehearsal, where we practiced in air conditioning and shared stories of the storm.  I was one of the few left without power.  Then I received the most welcome text ever from my wife…

Power is on!!!!!

I arrived home, and we aborted our temporary sleeping quarters in our relatively cool basement, and returned to our bedroom with the air cranked.  The next morning we took off for New York to see my sister-in-law, and here’s what we left behind:

July 4^th, 102 degrees

July 5^th, 103 degrees

July 6^th, 103 degrees

All three days were records.  We’d go on to have our third hottest July on record, with not one day offering a high temperature of less than 80 degrees. 

Today, July 2^nd, 2013, we expect a high temperature of 73.  Our grass is lush and green.  Our vegetables our flowering.  Our power is on.  True, we haven’t really had to use our band new air conditioner much this year, but that was to be expected.  And really, if we could have the summer we’re currently having every year from here on out, I’d be happy to never use our air conditioner again.