I sit down at Groundwork on Sunset and Cahuenga as I often do in the hour or so before work. I’d just hurried through a fierce rain squall to get there, but now that I’m pulling out my notebook, sun streams across my table. That’s the way the weather’s been lately here in L.A. Even as I mull over this the sun fades. So I snap this picture.
I figure I’ll keep the camera out, because if recent patterns hold, it’ll be torrential in a few minutes. Sure enough, the clouds roll in. The sky gets dark. One of the cool cats who work at the coffee house ventures out into the gray light.
And then the raindrops begin to fall. Within three minutes, the rain is coming down at an angle very close to sideways. Men and women hustle past, either unaware or beyond caring that their umbrellas are inside out. One man carries a patio umbrella. I’m worried he’s going to Mary Poppins down the street. The girl who had just left stumbles back in, drenched. Hail strikes the window. I snap this picture.
I just wish I’d focused past the drops of water on the glass…
