Sunshine and rainbows!
Sometimes I'm like a little kid.
Yesterday we had a massive rainstorm. It let up in the afternoon, and the sun finally broke through around 7pm, when I was walking from my office to the parking garage.
It was actually raining on me at that moment, a light spring rain with sparse, fat raindrops. Given the angle of the sun and quality of the rain, I knew what to look for.
TRIPLE RAINBOW. Holy crap. A full 180° main arc, with a faint reverse-rainbow just inside it (at the ends, not full 180), and a second bow several degrees outside it (again, on the downslope, not full 180). Never seen anything like it.
And me without a camera on my phone. Still, I stood in the parking garage looking at it goggle-eyed for twenty minutes until it faded away.
The funny bit was other people just plain didn't notice it. I walked to the garage grinning like an idiot, staring into the sky. And people were just going about their business, with no idea this spectacular thing was in plain view if they would just look up a little bit.
I love rainbows. They are utterly useless. They are simply a side effect of physics, light refracting through water drops to create this illusion in the sky. For me, knowing all that makes them even more enjoyable. Here's this beautiful thing, and it just is, and there's no reason that humans in general and me in particular should care about this random phenomenon.
But I do. Rainbows are rare. Knowing how they work makes me feel good, that I can personally witness this demonstration of physics. Seeing a triple was amazing.
Also they're pretty. :-) We need to appreciate the pretty things.