Springtime rain season in the greater Pacific Northwest should be over by now, but it's gray again.

This is the kind of uniform, all-encompassing gray that consumes the mountains, rooftops, trees, then everything else around.

It feels, smells, and sounds like fall. Late October, in fact, just after my birthday.

Even when the rain slows down, the gray remains--perhaps, with an occasional meager glimpse of sunlight.

I walk out in my bright red raincoat, passing by the railroad and scaring away a slew of Brewer's blackbirds perched up on the fence. They, too, want to take advantage of the chasm in the gray before it swallows the sun again.