Holding onto it

[asakiyume]

Yesterday it did end up raining--nice and dramatically--and we're glad, because it's been dry.

Earlier in the day, though, when it was still hot and sunny, and I was preparing to go for a run, an elderly couple walked by and commented on the how dry it's been, and we mused together on whether rain would really come:

Wife: "How come Holyoke gets a thunderstorm and we don't get nothing??"

Wife again (darkly): I heard the Quabbin holds onto it.

(The Quabbin, for those who don't know, is a massive reservoir that our town borders on and that provides the drinking water for the greater Boston area.)

Me (confused): Well... if the rain ever falls, I guess it does.

Wife (emphatically): No. It never lets it go.

Me (internally): Far be it from me to venture any opinions on your meteorological views, ma'am

Me (aloud, cautiously): Yeah... I don't really know how it works.

I shared this story on Twitter, and one of my pals there shared this music with me, "Ghosts of Quabbin." It starts with frogsong but gets good and headbangy.

...

Have a broken-pavement crocodile.

Comments

[sartorias]

That croc is pretty!

[asakiyume]

So glad you like him! It may rain again tomorrow, so he may well be short lived--he will soak up admiration while he can get it ;-)

[sonia]

I agree with your cautious response and love the broken-pavement crocodile.

[asakiyume]

I had never heard the theory that reservoirs (or any other body of water) keep rain from falling!

(I'm gratified you like the crocodile!)

[athenais]

Wow, that is so cheerful! The best!

[asakiyume]

:D

I got inspired looking at the cracked road the other day.

[marycatelli]

There's nothing like carefully watering your garden during a drought, and hearing thunder, and wondering if you should go in, but you don't know it will actually hit and your plants are kinda desperate. . . .

[asakiyume]

It's crazy how it can downpour one place and not another... I'm sure we've all had the experience at one time or another of driving in (or out) of the line of rainfall.

(So glad the rain *did* hit us that day)

[genarti]

I am fascinated by whatever she thinks reservoirs do -- I keep trying to figure out what she meant! -- but I agree with your diplomatic response.

I love the crocodile!

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I'm not quite sure! I got the impression she thought they somehow ... wouldn't let rain fall???

And hurray! I'm glad you like the crocodile.

[genarti]

The well-known rain shadow of reservoirs, obviously!

[asakiyume]

That must be it!

[anna_wing]

That crocodile demonstrates superb use of the intrinsic characteristics of the support surface!

Presumably the Quabbin has a cranky tutelary deity of some sort? Even the name sounds like some sinister local supernatural entity...

[asakiyume]

Thank you, re: crocodile! I was walking with a friend the other day and looking down, thought, You know what this looks like? Crocodile skin--and so the picture.

And as for the Quabbin's name, I knew it was a word from an indigenous language, but I didn't know more than that. Your comment prompted me to look, and it turns out it's named after a Nipmuc chief, and that the name means "many waters," which is good for a reservoir. ... As mallorys_camera notes below, four towns were displaced to create the Quabbin, and so there may be many disgruntled spirits associated with it, too.

[mallorys_camera]

Maybe your neighbor is referring to the dead inhabitants of the little towns they had to drown to fill Quabbin. They're angry and vengeful.

(This reminds me of a half-written short story I have somewhere on my hard drive about the angry and vengeful dead inhabitants of the little towns in the Catskills they had to drown to create the Ashokan reservoir. My angry and vengeful dead inhabitants metamorphosed into deer and were forever causing traffic fatalities! 😊 The story is based on a drive I took one night between Woodstock and Kerhonksen where I swear, every quarter mile there was a deer staring at me malevolently from the side of the road. Spooky! And the moon was full. Alas! I could not figure out a plot to graft upon the intriguing premise, and so the story languishes.)

[asakiyume]

I know that feeling--having an intriguing premise and no particular story to put under/around/through it. But spirits turning into vengeful deer is definitely one I like!

[sovay]

Wife (emphatically): No. It never lets it go.

I appreciate your drive-by folk horror.

[asakiyume]

It lives among us, apparently!

[wayfaringwordhack]

LOL. That is exactly the kind of vibe I got from The Wife's comments. :P

[asakiyume]

LOL!

[wayfaringwordhack]

I love, love, love your crocodile. My day is even brighter for having beheld it!

[asakiyume]

Thank you!

We've had two days of drenching rain, which is good because it was so dry, but it means he's probably gone now (I haven't been out to check)--but it was definitely fun creating him, and he got a lot of love, which made me happy.