The summer sun is creeping back into our picture, here, and the heat along with it. We were given that most merciful of breaks, a rain wave pushing through for a few days.

But it never lasts long enough. Our grass is cheering the rain, every drop a blessing.

I'm glad the tropical wave wasn't more than rain, and I know the people living down south of us were happy even more than we were to have it come through. Water being always at a premium. I remember the first time someone from the Valley (i.e. South Texas if that's unfamiliar to you) who told me they were praying for a tropical storm to come through. And they weren't kidding. The reservoirs are always low and getting lower.

It took me a while to get used to that. I've lived in Texas essentially my whole life, but my family and my summers as a kid are in Louisiana, where a tropical storm or hurricane is always a threat, a killer waiting to drop in unwanted. Over there, there is always rain.

Here, not so much. It's one of the little differences that tell you so much about how people think different just a few miles away from their neighbors.

I realized this summer one of the ways that difference shows up. In south Louisiana, if I see a twenty, thirty percent chance of rain in the forecast, I know there's a reasonably good chance I'm gonna get wet at least once during the day.

Here, this summer at least, and in South Texas every year, a twenty percent chance of rain is something closer to a laughing curse from the weather gods. Because you know you'll be looking at the sky, watching a few clouds roll over, begging them to drop something.

And knowing they're just going to breeze on by.