According to my online research (mostly Wikipedia), the phrase is considered to be purple proseВ ~ a type of florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing. It was a dark and stormy night.Where exactly did that line originate? The introductory clause is part of the opening sentence of the 1830 novel Paul CliffordВ written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Now, the rain was coming down in sheets, I had a sleeping kitten in my office, and my clothes looked like they belonged on a clothesline.ДЄnd, nobody came. I quickly ran to the bathroom and tried to hand dry my soaked hair with less than hour to spare before the program started. Within minutes, the traumatized kitten was sound asleep. We placed the kitten in the box, folded the box top so he had air to breathe, and placed a book on top so he didn't escape during the program. By this time, the shelver was fully committed to the process. So, the passerby (I didn't even get his name), the shelver, and I were all dripping wet but, the kitten was safe, and I was trying to find a cardboard box in which to place the kitten, until it was time for both of us to go home. Also, did I mention that I live thirty miles from my job? How on earth was he still alive? Big Sigh.I knew I had to try and get him back home to his mother. Somehow the kitten climbed into the body of my car and survived the ride with me to work. One of the feral momma cats at our house has a litter of kittens, and this kitten is the one we call Paws. When I saw the four white paws of the little black kitten, I knew exactly what had happened. After several attempts, he retrieved the kitten.Дid I mention that this entire situation occurred just one hour before the storytelling program was supposed to begin? A local farmer had brought me a bushel of peanuts that needed to be loaded into the trunk of my car so while I was standing in the rain ~ somewhere between waiting for the peanuts to be loaded and the farmer fumbling through his overall pockets to make change for a twenty ~ I heard the kitten meow. When I explained to him that a small kitten was trapped underneath the vehicle, he proceeded to lie down on the wet ground while I held the umbrella over his head. Well, actually, I didn't save him (or her, God forbid) a man passing by in a truck saw me lying down in a witch's costume on the wet ground underneath the vehicle with the library shelver holding an umbrella over my head, and he stopped to see if we needed help.

Yes.I did save a black kitten on Halloween. Where did I take a wrong turn? Why do I do what I do? Have I missed a sister life that should have been mine? Why do I save cats, go postal when I see dogs tied to trees, endeavor to get kids to come to the library, and write stories about a life that, in the wee hours of this early morning, seems scant and meager. ~ and I have been up most of the night questioning every decision I have ever made in my life. I should have canceled that simple.Д«ut for some reason ~ it is now 4:00 a.m. By closing time at 8:00 p.m., the remnants of the dark and stormy night were history, as were any signs of a Halloween library program. At 6:45, I began climbing up and down the ladder for the hundredth time to take down decorations, and the storm that had hammered central Mississippi was moving east. I waited until 6:30 before I blew out the forty candles. To say that the rain fell in torrents is a mild understatement. My branch manager and I lit forty tealight candles in baby food jars at 5:50, and the witching hour began at 6:00 p.m. It was a dark and stormy night the rain fell in torrents ~ and nobody came.

The perfect stormy torrent