Different kind of clouds

I'm safely and happily in Oregon, although it always takes a few days when crossing multiple time zones to not feel like it's 4 AM all day.  I'm sitting in my brother's pub, the Brewer's Union Local 180, with my very tall nieces, looking out at the mist caught in the douglas-firs on the hills across town.  

Somehow the rain and mist in Oregon are very different from the Ithaca brand.  There the lead-colored winter sky is always "squatting so close over us tonight you'd think it was trying to hatch us" (Bruce Cockburn).  In Oregon, the mist and rain moves and changes, snagged in trees and hills, with sunbreaks and sudden clear patches.

My brother just walked by with a pint in his hand and threatened to get out the Scrabble board.  Those are fighting words, and I must go rise to the challenge.