When I moved to California, I was amazed the way traffic is paralyzed when it rains. I am originally from the Midwest and in my town, winter attacked us November first as regularly as if the Lord Himself were standing by with a stop watch. The humidity would rise to 99%, the temperature drop below zero and the snows descend. The roads were glaciers until promptly at dawn on May 31st, when the temperature rose to one hundred degrees. The humidity remained constant.

In winter, I can remember devoting the entire day to driving to the grocery store. I would bundle up in a storm coat, wrap several scarves around my body and pull on my stadium boots. I'd put the chains on my tires and careen out the driveway only to slither down the road two miles an hour with periodic stalls in snow drifts the size of Mt. Rainier. When I arrived at the store, there would be nothing on the shelves because the delivery trucks were stalled on the highway. I would make the journey back at an even slower pace because by evening the roads were clogged with wrecked vehicles and abandoned tractors who failed to do their job. The year we were snowbound for over a week and helicopters dropped food to us, I vowed to move to someplace bearable.

When I found the Bay Area, I discovered my brand of heaven. The first year I was here, the rain was never more than a casual downpour and I don't remember putting on a pair of boots or a heavy coat. However, in the winter of 1982, I got my first taste of the torrents that destroy tempers while they refill our reservoirs.

I was living in a tiny place about the size of the average disabled toilet stall and I had accumulated a large family of four footed friends. At that time, I had Jake, an overweight cocker spaniel who looked at me with adoring eyes and panted when he saw me the way I had always dreamed someone would at the Senior Prom. Cindy was a chocolate poodle so insecure, she jumped on my lap at every opportunity. She liked to rest her head against my heart to assure herself that it was beating. My third dog, Molly was afflicted with perpetual flatulence. Her very presence was enough to empty a room.

I also had three cats, Toby Ann, who had come to me from the wilds behind Menlo Park, Bertha, a tiny newcomer I had adopted in Oklahoma City and Eileen, the only one who had endured the Midwest with me. We would listen to the frantic weather reports on KCBS and chuckle together.

I believe in walking my dogs every day. They need exercise and so do I. I had never encountered rain as pervasive as I did that winter but I refused to allow it to interfere with the health of my family. I purchased little yellow slickers for the dogs and an oversized golf umbrella to shield us all. On the first day of serious precipitation, I put on my waterproof rain suit and rubber boots and leashed up everyone. When I opened my front door, a rush of water blew into my living room and knocked over the corner lamp. The outdoors looked like a filled bathtub and I could barely make out my own front step. I squared my shoulders and nodded to the dogs. "We're off!" I announced.

By the end of the week, nothing in my house was dry. Water leaked under the door and around the windows. It soaked the rug and it left immense puddles on the floor. My clothes had a film of mildew on them and even the cats looked moldy. Toby Ann insisted on maintaining her nightly prowls and her muddy footprints gave my ivory rug the look of a rejected abstract painting. Eileen was smart enough to sit on the couch and wait it out. She had been through a real winter. Bertha refused to use the litter box because she didn't want to get her feet wet. She adopted a corner of the living room rug to relieve herself and my home smelled like the cat house at the zoo.

My rain equipment was history before the first storm ended. Jake chewed through his raincoat because it was the color of his favorite rubber toy and Molly wiggled out of hers because she couldn't bear restraint. Cindy caught her nails in her jacket when she tried to jump upwards to do a routine check on my coronary condition. My rain boots sprung a leak when I stepped on an abandoned axle in the middle of the road and the golf umbrella reversed itself with such force that it almost flew me across the bay.

After a month of this new form of water sport, I looked as though I had just endured a ritual bath and the dogs resembled a strange variety of antelope when we walked down the street. On the day that finished my rain treks once and for all, the downpour had paused and I decided to risk running down to the post office before the next storm moved in. I had a week's correspondence and bills to mail.

I managed to put the dogs' dripping collars around their necks and get them leashed. They ran to the door, their enthusiasm undampened by the dreadful storms we had endured and we emerged to a relatively dry day. The dogs and I did our snake dance between puddles and I looked up at the sky. A cloud so black it resembled a bloated ink blot was sinking toward me at approximately the speed of light.

We managed to get to the end of the block before the sky opened up and a celestial waterfall emptied on my head. I picked up Cindy and shielded her under my jacket. She immediately nestled her head against my sweatshirt and played stethoscope. I couldn't protect the others because Jake weighed almost as much as I did and I didn't think I could endure Molly that close to my nose. She was emitting such immense volumes of gas that I could actually see it form blue clouds above her tail. Jake couldn't bear walking beside her. He yanked so violently at his leash that my arm felt like it was not long for its socket.

At this point, I rounded the corner to the post office and tried to fish my letters out from between Cindy and my shirt. Suddenly a tiny pink Volkswagen drove up over the curb and screeched to a halt at my feet. The irate driver leaned her (dry) head out the window and screamed, "THOSE DOGS ARE SHIVERING!!! WHERE ARE THEIR RAIN COATS? I AM REPORTING YOU TO THE SPCA!"

As I turned to the woman, a gust of water blew into my mouth and Cindy relieved herself on my sweatshirt. I thought I was having a hot flash and couldn't believe menopause would dare to chose so inopportune a moment to begin. I narrowed my eyes and if looks could kill, I would have been able to toss that woman on the road and drive the Volkswagen home immediately. "YOU DO THAT," I hissed. "AND CALL THE SENIOR HELP LINE AS WELL. IF I DON'T DIE OF PNEUMONIA FIRST, I AM MOVING TO RENO."

I managed to stuff my letters into the mailbox and the four of us paddled home. I turned the heater on high, gathered my dripping family in my arms and said to them, "Never again. Never AGAIN."

It has been raining a great deal this past year but when it does, my little pets and I remain inside. We all gather at the window and I say to my babies, "If that stuff were snow, we would be stuck with it until the end of May."

I play California Dreamin' on the stereo and we all begin to dance. We dance because the exercise is good for us. We dance to keep our spirits up and we dance because the rain is outside and we are not.