Rainbow hunting

We had an odd storm last night where the rain just came and went for about a half-hour. And when I noticed that it was raining on one side of our house and sunny on another, I immediately went searching for a rainbow. (I know I frustrated poor Chad with this wild goose chase because he had just finished making dinner and I was not paying one bit of attention to it. But he knows me well enough to know that all things stop when you're rainbow hunting.)

Needless to say, the rainbow didn't take long to find. Here's what was outside of our front window. If you look really closely, you can see the double rainbow a ways up from the really bright one:

This made me think about my best rainbow memories. What comes to mind:

• Mom giving in to the pleas of her four kids, letting us all hop in the car on a summer night in search of the end of a rainbow. We drove for awhile and then it just disappeared--which is too bad because, at the time, I was sure that it was going to make us rich. Or that we'd at least see a leprechaun.

• Driving over to Grandma Marge's house when I was in high school to show her a rainbow that was outside. This was before cell phones and I was on Henderson Street heading home from work. I knew she'd want to see it because she's the biggest rainbow-lover I know.

• A little over two years ago, when we found out that Chad's grandmother had just a few months to live, both of us were feeling very melancholy. It was the first irreversible sickness of one of our grandparents and neither of us knew exactly how to handle it. That night, the most subdued, you-can-barely-see-it rainbow appeared in the sky across the street from our house. And just a few days after we returned to DC from her funeral, another rainbow appeared in the exact same spot. I equated it to a little pep talk from God: "Hey, just wanted to let you know it's all good up here..." So I also think of Grandma Rhodes now when I see them.

• The most gorgeous rainbow I have ever seen: Outside of Cumberland, Maryland when we were driving home for Rachel's wedding. The sun was peeking out from the other side of the mountains and hitting the rain clouds perfectly to reveal the most sensational colors right from a Crayola box. We pulled over to take a picture, but couldn't capture its brilliance. I told Rachel that it was a sign that she picked the right guy. As if she didn't already know that!