Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Can't Sleep...

...listening to scary Typhoon Wind outside...

It's been raining/ pouring in bursts all day (no pool at school:-(( ... and we're supposed to be getting whacked sometime tonight or early tomorrow (Wednesday for me) morning.  It was quiet around dinnertime, then suddenly about an hour ago the wind kicked up.  So I've had to go 'round, shutting the windows, in spite of how stuffy it will likely get in here.  Can't have rain blowing in all over the blankies!  It's damp enough as it is.

Here's hoping I can sleep through howling wind... (having leapt out of bed at 5:00 this morning to rescue my laundry from the Doshaburi--downpour-- that came down as the leading edge of the system crept northward-- I am already sleeeeeeepyyyyy....)

9 comments:

  1. And here in San Diego it remains 24º C and sunny. :-) Sometimes it would be nice to get a little change in the weather!

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  2. "Doshaburi" - to rain "earth and sand". I'm not sure whether that's better than to rain "cats and dogs" (except for the cats and dogs themselves). From NHK, it looks as if this one will be a doozy.

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  3. Sachi-- San Diego is a *lovely* town (visited there back in March for the first time:-)) But I know what you mean about change of seasons...

    Derek-- I've always assumed that "doshaburi" was a reference to all the mudslides they inevitably get here whenever there's too much rain, which is to say that it seems the most literal expression about heavy rain that I know of. German is "Es regnet Bindefaden"--it's raining strings;-))

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  4. ugh. weather is crazy everywhere right now! We have temps in the 100s this week and humidity that's rivaling the frickin Amazon. For reals, they said so on the news.
    WTF Minnesota... W.T.F.
    I do love to wake up to a thunderstorm though, but i hate when it messes with my sleep pattern

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  5. We in boring old Britain—or at least my part of it—have had 'mildly warm, some drizzle, with sunny patches'.

    Mind you, I don't think I'd swap it for typhoons or Amazonian heat-waves.

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  6. Yokohamamama -- I'm no etymologist, certainly not in Japanese, but I think you're on the right track. "Dosha" itself is a perfectly respectable term for a mixture of earth and sand, and I've heard "doshakuzure" for "landslide", though my electronic dictionary doesn't have it. The Phrase Finder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/raining%20cats%20and%20dogs.html) offers as one explanation that "raining cats and dogs" may come from dead animals washing down the streets in a very heavy rain (going as far back as Swift) - it would not be too much of a leap to think that "doshaburi" originated from the flow of mud that can accompany severe rain. My Kojien is unhelpful, but perhaps someone has a Japanese etymological dictionary (Nihon Gogen Daijiten). Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raining_animals) on "raining cats and dogs" has a list of similar phrases in various languages - interestingly the one they quote for German is to rain "junge Hunde" (young dogs).

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  7. After reading this, I think that I should stop complaining about our boring, rainy weather. We have a lot of rain but no typhoons. At least it's only overcast today and not rainy or cold!

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  8. Another strong (6?) quake the BBC reports - no major damage though??? When does an 'aftershock' cease to be an aftershock & become a quake in its own right?

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  9. You must be busy, or is it school holidays that are keeping you away?
    ;)

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