Every corner of the sky awkwardly showed up wearing the exact same thing, a moody gray dress accessorized with flat clouds. If North, South, East, and West were drag queens, this would be bad, very bad.

The sun was as flirty as Scarlett O'Hara with the Tarleton twins, breaking through the clouds in spectacular bursts that seemed like personal favors and then retreating for hours, days, and making us all ache for just a glimpse.

So many things can interfere. You have to allow for weather and the availability of your workers as well as city code inspectors — who have all been very helpful and fair, by the way.

You chart pressures, like a weather man looks for clouds and storms, ... There are formations out there that tell you that the blitz is coming. Sometimes they're more difficult to forecast than others.

I loved weather, all weather, not just the good kind. I loved balmy days, fearsome storms, blizzards, and spring showers. And the colors! Everyday brought something to be admired: the soft feathery patterns of cirrus clouds, the deep, dark grays of thunderheads, the lacy gold and peach of the early morning sunrise. The sky and its moods called to me.

Clouds grossly affect the greenhouse effect on the planet. So they play a very profound role in weather and climate. Yet taken altogether they are one of the most poorly understood aspects of the climate change problem.