Love and Rainy Days

A couple days ago marked the second rainy Sunday in a row here in Moscow. June has been very wet and cold here, which, of course, makes me miss home a little. It also makes me point and laugh at my friend's status updates on facebook complaining about the heat. The jury is still out on whether or not I'm a fan of this.

I own an umbrella now! Well, I think I've always owned at least half a dozen umbrellas left in places I didn't need them. Like, my car when I'm in the office. Or my apartment when I'm in my car. You get what I'm sayin. But now, I go out armed with an umbrella to get through June's rainy days.

Owning an umbrella is not as easy as it sounds. Back home, you just make a mad dash for your car and an umbrella only slows you down and gets buckets of rain in your car, so having a reliable umbrella has never been an issue for me. Cheapest, please. (Which, of course, means "stolen from Mom and Dad's house when I visit". It's alright, I take one and two more replace it, I'm sure...love you Dad!) I really think that this is the first time I've ever had to buy an umbrella. And they're expensive here in Moscow!

So, thinking I could outsmart everyone, I bought a $3 umbrella in Dubai. I am a clever girl. And it was blue with white stars. I would say it makes me look American, but the Russians love colored/themed umbrellas, so I look more Russian than anything.

I did NOT look Russian last Sunday, on my way to church. It was raining, my umbrella matched my outfit, I was set. And then the wind came. And my umbrella went to shit. I'm walking down the sidewalk, balancing my bag, umbrella handle and half of my flimsy covering that has completely caved in. Thats a lot to be paying attention to, so there really isn't any room to pay attention to giant puddles that have formed on the sidewalk. Basically, if you can't get a visual, I'm a mess.

But my iPod is playing NeedtoBreathe, and I'm feeling pretty optimistic. Cold? No, alive. Wet? No, experiencing.

I'm probably a good 15 minute walk from church, and my umbrella did that thing where it turns inside out one last time. By the time I finish struggling to put it back in place, one of the metal frames has come unhooked, and is now dangling dangerously close to my face. Convinced at this point that I was going to gouge my eye out, or get my hair tangled in this death trap, I did what any normal human being would do and I made a frustrated groan (probably too loud, since I was still jammin' to my iPod...), wrestled with it to get it to close and stuffed it into a trash can next to a bus station where two babushkas sat comfortably waiting for their bus.

Are you getting this picture? Because if you still can't see it, imagine a Chris Farley-esque scene wrestling with a broken umbrella. Even I couldn't help but laugh. At myself.

I survived the rest of the way to church on a light drizzle. And as soon as I got back to the Metro station, I stopped and bought the most expensive umbrella I have ever purchased. 600 rubles ($20) total. But, I inspected it very well, and didn't get the most expensive one, so I felt better about buying it. What I was inspecting for, I wasn't sure, but the wiring looked sturdy and it fit in my purse, so I left a happy customer.

It ended up being a good day. You can't not smile when you get win any battle, even if it is with a flimsy opponent, in my case, an umbrella. And I've even started to like walking in the rain with my new, much sturdier umbrella. It never fails to make me smile and think about that story.

Cheers to the things that protect us from the elements. Whether they work or just make us smile.