A few rays of hope in Boston

The assignment was simple: Record the rain-soaked angst of Boston, on the eighth day of non-stop rain.

As expected, the angst was abundant, even as it underscored how fortunately remote from the flood's devastation the city has been.

Children were stuck inside. Baseball games had been canceled. Ice cream parlors were empty.

People were eager to spout. The complaints felt small, even to them. But out they poured. Six hours later, the notebook was full. And the story was done.

Or was it? What was that bright object peeking through the shades? Probably just a reflection of fluorescent office lights on the tinted windows. Back to story.

Bostonians responded with gusto to the critical question: ''What do you think about the rain we've been having?

''The weather's terrible! I can't stand it!" said Clem Trovato, 88, as she ran some errands in the North End. ''It makes you feel sluggish."

''We've all been stuck in our houses," said Salvi DeVita.19.

Sure, there were some who insisted the rain wasn't so bad. Carlos Bernan insisted he liked to go jogging in it, to smell the verdant soil at the Arnold Arboretum.

For eight days?

''It's perfect," he said.

But most agreed with Rayne Morgan, who said she had had about enough.

''I'd rather be sleeping, is basically what it comes down to," she said.

At the Big Dig downtown, the job site was just muck. ''Everything's three times as difficult," groaned Mike Fischer, who runs a rubber-tired backhoe. ''You can't see. It takes longer. The guys are wet."

As deadline approached, the reporter was delighted. The scene offered a variety of rich prospects for flowery descriptions. Such as:

In the Public Garden, rain-driven silver-bell blossoms form a papier-maché mush on the sidewalk. The swans glide moodily past the empty swan boats. In South Boston, a couple huddles under the gazebo at Pleasure Bay, as rain falls -- and falls and falls -- on the deserted beach.

There were food-related rain repercussions to include: At Stephanie's on Newbury, the outdoor patio had been closed for days, and the cassoulet was selling more rapidly than lobster rolls. In the North End, a sparkling new gelateria was empty in the early afternoon.

And another angle: never had so many people ached to do yard work.

''The lawn is like a jungle!" said Tammy Anderson of Natick.

Along the way, however, some interviews suggested a troubling development not quite imagined by editors.

Some people claimed to have actually seen the sun. Ann Ambrose, brandishing a skeletal umbrella against another shower as she walked along the waterfront in South Boston, reported seeing some source of light through her office windows in Woburn that morning. Somebody else heard a first-hand report of a sighting of rays in Plymouth.

Back at the newsroom, a 5 p.m. call to a National Weather Service meteorologist, Alan Dunham, confirmed it: Satellite images showed that the sun had been visible for some period yesterday.

''They didn't see it for long," he said. ''But at least they got a glimpse of it."

He relayed this in an almost Santa Claus-like tone. That is because yesterday happened to be a wonderful day to be a meteorologist in Boston: The forecast for tomorrow, he promised, was for nothing short of lovely.

But it was not a great day to be a reporter, at least not the one covering the weather.

That is because, just after deadline, the sun appeared. Unmistakably. And with it dawned the fear that, if tomorrow was as sunny as Alan Dunham said it would be, nobody would want to read a moldy old rain story.

Which would be a shame. Because then they would not know that Markeety Tate, a homeless veteran, had his saxophone playing on City Hall Plaza washed out by the weather. Or that Mike Zamojski couldn't see his mother on Mother's Day because he was stranded in Maine.

Or that Albie Alba, a produce seller in the North End, was making big plans for the first sunny day: ''I'm going to tan my head because I shaved mine. And the first thing I'm doing is getting my tan back."