It’s such a dry February that the grass I was worrying about cutting came up brown, saving me the trouble of cranking up the lawnmower. This year I’ll be spray painting the grass green and the robins will be plucking dried worms from the brown, brown grass of home.

I was worrying about our community well’s water supply, then I realized that a water shortage isn’t so catastrophic. It means no grass watering, which is fine, as the lawn came up pre-dead, and no car washing, which is another time saver.

If the water shortage grows worse this summer I’m perfectly willing to bathe in the Sound at night and wash clothes by pulling them behind the boat. I like the feel of clothing washed in salt water, it’s stiff and formal, without the starch, and the eelgrass makes a decorative touch to an otherwise dull shirt.

At least much of Whidbey Island depends on ground water, which I suspect is in pretty good supply due to the rains of November and December. Pity the poor communities that depend on mountain snow runoff, since there isn’t much mountain snow. The spring runoff which usually fills the rivers and reservoirs will be unable to fill even the state’s supply of squirt guns.

We’ll have millions of people unable to bathe and thousands of kids who will be squirting air. The summer of 2005 could be the longest, hottest in state history, shortening tempers and perhaps leading to water riots. Firefighters will have to spray the rioters with sand to calm them down.

For those of us who are native born, this relentless sunshine is already getting depressing. There’s nothing to look forward to except another sunrise, followed by yet another sunset, with the two events interspersed by nothing but sunshine. White clouds, gray clouds, steel-blue clouds have all been banished from the skies. There’s nothing to see up there but airplanes and the monotonous blue expanse.

For the first time in our lives we are looking longingly to Southern California, where our rain is coming down by the bucketful. Nature somehow gave them our rain and us their sunshine, and it just isn’t natural.

The TV shows vast expanses of green grass in Los Angeles, visible behind the reporter showing off the latest gargantuan sinkhole. Perhaps global warming is to blame, or maybe it’s Governor Schwarzenegger’s fault. He’s terminated our water supply so Caleefornia can be lush and green, and they can produce hydropower and water to export to the dark and thirsty Northwest.

California resorts will soon be gearing their advertising pitches to Northwest tastes.

“Come, and golf in the rain,” “Once again, you can sing in the rain,” “There’s nothing like walkin’ in the rain,” “Enjoy that feeling of drying off after a rain-soaked day on a California beach,” “Disneyland, where it’s a small, wet world, after all.”

Maybe I’ll become the first Washingtonian to move to California because of the wet weather there. A refugee from the unending sun of the Northwest, a seeker of California’s liquid sunshine.

If anyone’s interested in a house on a really dry lot, give me a call.