I only know Cathy Colt virtually, but I know her to be a polymath of the highest order. With her husband, Roger Pomerantz, she is routinely found in exotic climes, is a lady farmer, a Harvard-educated ophthalmologist, an adroit student of words and is a highly regarded expert on the global cultivation and distribution of vanilla beans. She recently reminded her readers of the delicious words pluviophile (somebody who takes pleasure in rain and rainy days) and petrichor (the pleasant, earthy smell after a big rain, especially after dry, warm weather). There of course are gradations of these notions. A psekaphile likes drizzling rain, an hyetophile is a fan of any form of rain, including your wintry mix and a dripetophile adores the incessant, maddening drops from the faucet in a rusty kitchen sink at 3 am in a cold water flat in the Bronx. As you’d expect, all this immediately put me in mind of 19th Century French Romantic poetry.
© 2024 John Oliver
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