Foggy and cold

City in fog

It rained all night and temperatures dropped to below 10 degrees. The sky all night was red and very cloudy. I said it rained ... but it's not like showers that you are used to ... it's heavier than drizzle but lighter than a tropical shower. I've been trying to find a word for it ... a rainzle or a drizain .... But the several hours of it is still welcome and the dry hard ground is absorbing every drop of it. It actually feels like winter again from times past. In fact there was an electric blackout at 3am ... a frequent occurrence 25 years back when rains were heavy. I was up because I felt very cold despite the heater turned on. Anyway the electricity came back an hour later.

Dome of the Rock mosque in the mist

At 4am I went down to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and then went out to our terrace. The whole City and the Mt. of Olives were enveloped in a thick fog. The Dome of the Rock mosque appeared and disappeared from the wafting mist. It was an incredible sight. Yes it definitely felt like winter from previous decades.

It would have been ideal to sleep through the morning but I had to go preach a retreat in the morning. I had to wear 2 sweaters and a thick hoodie to walk to the venue. In the afternoon I had to proofread an article and then arranged the flowers for our chapel for tomorrow's feast of Christ the King. Working with water in the 12 degree sacristy is no fun. But I finished my work and though its not very pretty, I'm happy with it.

There was an unsettling news that Israel voted down a UN resolution to call the persecution of the minority Yezidi people in Syria a genocide. Obviously it was made to please some foreign power in the region.

Several thousand Gazans protested at the border yesterday ... not that the rains did not prevent them but most probably they were forced by their govt. Well thank goodness for the rain, they couldn't burn tires and fly incendiary balloons. Mother Nature still holds sway.