Rain, Rain and More Rain

I've been very bad about posting. Or rather about NOT posting.

It's not that I haven't thought about posting lately. It's just that the rain has me down. I keep thinking that as soon as the sun comes out, my mood will lift and good thoughts will come pouring out.

I've been waiting now for over three weeks. The sun was out Saturday but I wasn't home (a different post still to be written) so couldn't blog then.

And while there are thoughts pouring out of my head today as I watch the rain pelting the ground yet again, I don't think I'm quite ready to share most of those thoughts; they come from a dark, dank place deep inside. Plus, I'm not sure that kind of language is proper for blogs!

Suffice it to say, we've had a LOT of rain in the past two months - like record-setting amounts of rain. This is Rose Festival week in Portland so it's natural that it should be raining. It pretty much always rains during Rose Festival.

Despite the rain, we do still get Charli down to the river for her daily swim. We discovered on Thursday of last week, however, that our beautiful sandy beach has been consumed by water.

See that red line?

Yeah, that one. That's normally where we walk on a nice sandy beach; it's now under several feet of water. So we can't walk. We just walk to the bottom of the path and stop.

And Randy throws the bumper for Charli.

And she swims out to retrieve it because...well, because she loves to swim and she's a labrador retriever...it's what she does. And while Charli loves to run on the beach and roll in the sand, she really loves to swim. So, even though there's no beach for us to walk, we continue our daily trips to the river.Because Charli doesn't care if there's a beach; she just wants to swim.

One Sad Dog

First let me say that Charli gets out for a swim pretty much every day. Even if it's raining (not pouring, just raining and yes, there is a difference; I live in the Pacific NW, trust me, there is a difference), she still gets out for a swim.

And this is how she gets us to take her.

She just stares out the window. Even her reflection looks sad.

Then she does this:

Is your heart breaking yet? If she doesn't get a response, she goes back to the window and breathes out a big, noisy sigh. It's pitiful. Really.

I swear if you could look into her brain at what her favorite scene is, this is what you'd see:

Poor little yellow dog.