It doesn't take long, just three rain sessions in a row, to make it seem it's been raining forever.

Just this Saturday afternoon the sun came out. It broke in time to save the Echo Park Art Walk, which looked to me like a success. Lots of people and a care-free vibe. But now we're back to worrying about drainage -- where it doesn't work around my house -- and worrying about drainage -- where it works too well in taking rainwater to the ocean.

A few days ago, I had coffee with a friend, whom I have known since childhood. I started blustering about the wasted water from all this rain, and he agreed it was a bad thing, but he also had some perspective, having actually talked to engineers in the foothills about storing water. Big surprise, it isn't that simple -- it sounds enormously difficult in fact. (I couldn't try to explain the particulars.) ... But then again, I think, didn't they drain some huge swamps to create Central Park in New York and, of course, much of upper Manhattan? It took about 4,000 laborers to create Central Park, which is designed to evoke the wilds of Connecticut. And that was over 150 years ago.

Cluck, cluck.