The weather is holding remarkably here for January. The rain
in the first week lasted about a day, and at the end of the week it was blue
skies and warm. It has not really rained since. Of course it can’t last, but it
makes for an amazing January while it’s here. Other parts of the country are
seeing floods, and I think New York is having unseasonal warmth (the January 11 New Yorker cover portrays people bathing
in a warm Rockefeller Center ice-rink-turned-swimming pool). Everything is out
of kilter.
In anticipation of a rainy season, which we’re assured is
coming, I bought two army surplus rain ponchos several months ago. That first week’s rain provided the occasion
to unwrap them, or maybe “unfurl” would be the better description.
Each comes tightly wrapped in a plastic ball about the size
of a softball. Once out of its envelope, however, it unfurls into what proves
to be a large sheet of black plastic with a hood in the middle. You stick your
head through a hole in the plastic sheet and into the hood. A drawstring lets
you pull the hood tight around your face. The rest of the sheet then drapes
itself around you shapelessly but
effectively. It is impossible to fold
it back into that softball-size envelope.
There are multiple snaps and laces, as is typical of army
gear, but there is a particularly ingenious aspect to this item: snap two of
them together and you have a tent.
A hat rounds out the ensemble. The “boonie” hat is also
black, this time of canvas, with a wide brim to divert the water away from the
face. As you would expect, it has a chin strap. I’m not yet clear on whether
you perch it atop your hood -- that would seem redundant -- or wear it instead
of the hood, maybe in lighter rain. In any case, fully attired in my rain
outfit, particularly with that black hood drawn tight around my face, I look
like the Grim Reaper, but I am near-impervious to water damage.
