In Carl Sandburg’s classic poem,  the fog arrives “on little cat feet,” sits silently and moves on. But on the Northern California coast, fog doesn’t tiptoe. It billows and pounces. It sweeps over ridges and tumbles down ravines. It slithers up estuaries, rafts on the tides, trundles through the Golden Gate. And like a clueless houseguest, it overstays its welcome, lingering from Gray May through June Gloom into the month known elsewhere as August. We call it Fogust.

I used to resent the hulking thief that stole the summer skies. But after decades in its moist embrace, I’ve learned to look at fog, made of water droplets just like a cloud, from both sides — and to appreciate its unexpected gifts.