Rainy Day Diaries

Today was one of those hard-hitting rainy sorts of days. Not torrential, persay, but enough that if you dashed out to a waiting cab to assuage a cab driver who'd been waiting for, I don't know, 8 minutes or so, then dashed back inside to gasp out a quick, "All right, he's not happy, let's GO" to the two waiting teenagers inside, much to the amusement of the doctoral student standing in the background [who also happens to be your TA], your glasses might be all spattered in raindrops, your black cardigan would carry a literal sprinkling of black water residues like raisins in oatmeal, that very same black cardigan you tossed on at 6:30 this morning in a vague attempt to look more professional at your group project meeting this morning, only to be blown away by the full-on suit that your classmate donned.

And yet it was fun, out on a site observation with the two teenagers, our very first in a series of 12 *fingers crossed, and hoping to somebody that the Elusive Three start returning my phone calls and emails!* Despite meeting bimonthly since October we don't know each other all that well, but there's something about all being squashed into the backseat of a cab, slipping around as we make turns in Boston roads in Boston spring rains, that brings you together. Especially if your cab driver speaks with a Carribean accent, splashes intense cologne all over himself [Prada! He showed me later] and then turns up the rap so loud it vibrates the backseat, bounces along to it while slouched low over the wheel, all the while careening along like a madman.

"Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?" he asks the stalled oncoming traffic while waiting impatiently to make a left turn. "All right, I'll go then."

They'd all stopped because he'd turned so far into their lane that he blocked their path. They couldn't go.

Him making good on the turn after wrestling away their right of way was the only way to return traffic to its normal, orderly flow.


Yes, I wouldn't trade days like today for anything.