We Don't Know Clouds At All

(Tuesday, September 16). Clouds -strange clouds shaped like sand dunes in a line or waves coming to rest on a broad beach filled the skies over Marin as we drove into San Rafael to drop off the cats for boarding. Low clouds extended over the Bay during our drive across Highway 37 to Vallejo.
Thunderheads corkscrewed up from the Sacramento Valley, hanging omeniously, unmoving, parallel to our path north up I-5, threatening rain or hail, and bringing down temperatures in the southern end of the valley. Clouds skirted Shasta Lake, sitting astride I-5 like a reddish-orange bathtub that had been nearly drained dry thanks to the lack of spring rains and ample snowpack,
Mount Shasta, nearly nude of snow on her south-facing breasts and belly and with just a chip of snow or ice on her northern shoulders, was touched by clouds near her summit.
Clouds pouring over the mountains near Yrkea portended a death by downpour to our planned evening visit with Shakespeare's "Othello" in Ashland's outdoor Elizabethan Stage. Dark gray clouds descending on the theatre when left the restaurant after our pre-play dinner virtually assured it would be a wet night. But only a single raindrop (or perhaps a wayward bit of spittle from some knave sitting behind him) struck Dick on the forehead during the performance, proof that we don't know clouds at all.