On Rainy Days

Looking north-northeast on the Corniche

I think we are in Day # 5 of continuous rain. Or is it Day # 6? I sort of lost count. An official of CAD (Civil Aviation Department) said that Lebanon’s rainfall had already exceeded the 112 millimeter 30-year average for the rain season. “So far there has been 145 millimeters of rainfall, more than double the average of last year.” (source)

Pricipitation Averages in Lebanon  (source)

I am not quite sure how to read this. According to weatherbase.com, we should have received about 860 millimeter by the end of this year. Does he mean over the whole year? Or the month of November? Or the rainy season? What is our rainy season?

The Corniche this afternoon, in between rain showers and thunder

But it is wet. I had my roof fixed for the first time in 17 years. I had never ever done anything about the roof, and although it wasn’t leaking, I thought that this winter I’d rather be safe than sorry. Well, you know what they say, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Sure enough, my roof started leaking. That was Day # 4 into the rain.

A water spout developing

Sucking up water

It looked really happy though

Enough to give you a depression. But I bet nobody is as a depressed as our Eastern neighbor. Sleepless nights he must have. I bet he’s popping Lexapro by the dozen.

In a matter of 8 years he’s seen one acquaintance after another other go down; and by down, I mean ‘down’.

Saddam Hussein got pulled out of a hole like a rat, had his picture taken like a homeless bum in his underwear, and eventually was hung in a rather odd place surrounded by a jeering crowd. His sons were already dead by then, his family scattered.

Khadaffi got pulled out of a sewer pipe, was sodomized and lynched, and then put on public display for a number of days in a cooler. His family suffered the same fate as that of Saddam.

Mubarak is in jail, billions forever out of his reach, but he’s the lucky one; at least he didn’t get sodomized or hung. Or both.

That Tunisian guy is on the run like a dog, stuck in Saudi Arabia (now that’s a punishment too), his name of the Interpol list.

Still fishing; no matter that they might get 'zapped' into the next dimension

All this should be more than enough to give the Syrian president more than just sleepless nights. How does he think his days are going to end? Will he suffer the same fate? Hung from a lamp post in the streets of Damascus? Lynched like a dog somewhere in the desert while on the run to Iran?

And all I have to complain about is the rain. My future is infinitely and exponentially brighter than any Middle Eastern ruler right now.

Granted, I don’t have the cash that comes with that job, but all the money they accumulated for a rainy day; what good did it do them on when it started to rain?