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1/28/04:

Last Friday afternoon the rain came down so hard it became traffic.

C- called me right before our appointment to tell me that I didn't have to come over to her office that afternoon if I didn't want to. She had to translate one of her papers into English for an orthodontists' conference and needed my help. I said it's no problem, I have an umbrella, and her office is only three blocks down the hill slope that defines my neighborhood. It actually took me about 25-minutes to make it down there.

And this rain can be incredible, one of those sky-opening-at-once summer storms where cars pull over and everyone blindly hides under the store fronts. S?o Paulo doesn't really have sewers, not that I've really made it a point to notice if that's totally true. Here at least, the gutters are sculpted deeper and take advantage of the many tight hills to take the massive storm to elsewhere. It starts as a fast stream that causes me to leap from the curb about a meter, careful not to rudely splash fellow pedestrians. I'm pretty tall but this gets more and more difficult. Then the water spills over onto the sidwalks creating a sort of obstacle course of quick, long sprints onto the little raises in the broken tiles that line the curb.

Once the peaks in the walk are covered, I have to hide under awning of a cafe. At this point some strategy is necessary. I'm watching several streams make complicated patterns through the now undifferentiated road and sidewalk, carefully drawing a route wherein I'm only jumping into ankle-deep pits of water rather than getting soaked up to the knees even though multiple gallons of rain are blowing in under my umbrella anyway. Now I'm on the steepest slope of my route and the gutters are rivers and they crash against the backs of parked cars and spill to the side waist-high, slamming the back of a dumpster in front of a construction site turning the area into a fast mudslide and I then realize I've no dry inch left to save.

I had spent many years as a bike commuter through all of Chicago's inclemental offerings so I think I'd worn away most of the vanity that pits clothes against weather and keeps people from having any idea that blasting through the snow on a track bike is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I sensed this same thrill when I gave up, walked the remaining block and a half like a normal day with the water the soft cool hug that it is and sheepishly arrive with no need for any excuse for being a half hour late for an appointment 3 block away.

posted by jeremy @ 9:43 PM