It's raining, it's pouring

It's raining!

Not one of the brief drizzles that sometimes passes for rain here, where you have to run around in circles to get hit by a drop, but an honest-to-goodness, day-long drenching. Not hard, but steady.

It's fabulous. The streets are wet. There are puddles on the sidewalks. Storm drains are backed up. People are wearing raincoats and dashing about with umbrellas.

This is my first Arabian rain, and it's a pretty big deal. The newspapers do stories when it rains. Weather forecasters warn the public to "brace themselves" for the deluge, and the authorities caution drivers to take extra care on the slippery roads.

There's more rain in the forecast for tomorrow -- up to 20 millimeters (about three-quarters of an inch). Not much by Florida or Georgia standards, but enough to cause quite a stir in a place that gets less than 5 inches of rain all year.

When people ask what I miss about home, one of the first things that comes to mind is rain. The way it sounds through an open window or on the roof of your car. The way it bounces off sidewalks and pavement and glistens on the grass. The way a storm moves across open water. The way you sleep on a rainy night.

Of course, when Atlanta was drowning under daily downpours this fall, no one wanted to hear about my wistful feelings for the wet stuff. Maybe now I won't have to trouble you with that one any more.