It is pouring.

We’ve had a drought here in northeastern Georgia, so much so that folks have quit griping when it rains. But rain has often been associated with the more depressing times in life. When Karen Carpenter sang about “Rainy Days and Mondays” we just knew that wasn’t gonna be a happy tune. When the poet Longfellow penned the words, “Into each life some rain must fall” he was acknowledging that things just don’t go well all of the time. And we all know the one I used as the title, “When it rains, it pours.”

This week has been a difficult one. Despite some comments from relatives, I don’t write many entries about my personal life, my friends, or my family, and if I do, I don’t usually insert names. By and large that is to protect the guilty. Innocence is rare these days. Again, no names, but I will describe the situations.

First, an assistant principal at my son’s school called to tell me that my son is suspended. A classmate, a nefarious dude from what I have heard, “intentionally antagonized him [my son]” so my son turned around and poked at him with a pencil. Thus began his three day vacation from the classroom. As is common in the world of educational fairness, the perpetrator got the same punishment. If our criminal justice system worked the same way, those who steal and those who are stolen from would serve the same jail time.

Second, I am writing this week, but not a novel. I have until Tuesday to get together my “testimony” for an academic appeal hearing. A student who cited wikipedia as a scholarly source and thinks “theirselves” is proper grammar for a research paper has appealed her grade in my class. Her term paper is just one exhibit which I am planning to use as evidence. I’m not worried about the hearing; I’ve watched hubby prepare legal briefs for many years, so I know how to make a case. It is just one more thing to do when I’d rather be doing something else.

As for rain, Dolly Parton once said, “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

I could use a rainbow.