Winter reared its ugly head in the Bay Area today, but I stared it down. Gray skies, even a bit of rain. But it was really more like a hot and humid summer day in the Midwest than any normal day, summer or winter, here in Northern California. It was a silent storm, though, such as it was. No thunder, and no early fireworks.

I've been scoffing and sneering at the weather wags who keep telling us to expect rain. Then this morning as I was coming out of the grocery store, big wet drops started plopping on the plastic bags in my cart. Later this afternoon, when I walked out to get the mail, the air was still heavy and damp.

When I left for my errands this morning, I had to dodge the county work crew, who picked today to patch the paving on my two-lane road. As I was returning, I wondered if the sudden shower would keep them from finishing the project. Sure enough, as I was driving west, the parade of yellow trucks was moving east, emergency lights flashing, as they hauled the equipment out of here for the day. They hadn't got much done, having worked for little more than an hour.

I'm not saying it never rains here during the last week in June. And I'm not even going to complain about one day of leaky clouds. Good for the garden, keeps the fire danger to an acceptable risk level, makes the air smell sweet. Hurray for rain, but let's not have it settling in for the duration. Let's have enough to dampen the pollen count, but not enough to make big muddy bogs that I have to wade through to get from the house to the garage. Please.

What I'm really afraid of is that the areas I've so meticulously cleared of weeds will now experience a new growth spurt. That would tick me off no end.

I decided not to wait until the big check comes in before writing checks to all the suppliers I have to pay with those funds. They're starting to call (I'm still not answering the phone) and write (I'm about to stop opening the mail, too). The phone calls are whiny, but the letters are downright nasty.

The Boss has been on a remote job site for two weeks, but he still insists on managing everything. That would work better if he would check in once in a while, but by the time his day ends he's too tired to think clearly. So I'm left to fumble around, making what decisions I can and putting off all the work that depends on his input.

The fact that this week is the end of the month, and the end of the quarter, hasn't escaped me. July is always an intense month anyway, but with all that's happening (and not happening) lately, I'm looking forward to an explosion of activity over the next couple of weeks. That's the main reason I'm writing checks I can't even mail yet.

And no one in Sacramento can tell me whether our check has actually been mailed yet. It's been "approved" and "processed," but apparently there's no method to record the putting of our payment into an envelope and the dropping of that envelope into an outgoing mailbox.

Has our payment been "mailed"? No one knows.

So I have to borrow money (and pay interest) to avoid late charges on some invoices. For some reason, the Boss hates late charges even more than he hates interest payments.

Was it the rain? Was it the fresh asphalt in front of my mailbox? For whatever reason, I had to walk to the end of the driveway four times today looking for the daily post.

When I don't get any mail, I always think it's a mistake. I always wonder who got my mail that day. I get mail every day, so if the box is empty, my bills and credit card invitations and TV Guide and Baseball Weekly must have been delivered to someone else's house.

It doesn't occur to me that I just didn't get any mail today. (Well, obviously it does occur to me, eventually, since here I am writing about that very possibility.)