OED: "monkey's wedding"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The OED uses "sun shower" in a 1996 quote supporting the entry for the
noun "sign".
sign, n.
I. 10. a. A miraculous act or event; ...
1996   R. Doyle Woman who walked into Doors iv. 17,   I thought it was
some sort of a miracle or sign; it started to worry me. Then Mammy
told me that it was only a sun shower.

Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary online has "sun-shower" but I
did not see a date in the information shown to non-subscribers.

Here is a match in Google Books for sun-shower.

Reasoner: or Controversial magazine - Page 11
books.google.com/books?id=RmMgAQAAMAAJ
Socratic institution, London - 1814 - Read
... are proverbial ; this tenant of a smile, this child of a fickle
sun-shower, finds existence only in the hope that promises a future
joy. Led thus blindfold into the snares of expectation, if it prqve
ideal, he is made, perhaps, miserable for life.

On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: OED: "monkey's wedding"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Dec 2, 2012, at 10:11 AM, Neal Whitman wrote:
>
>> I learned "the devil is beating his wife" from a neighbor in El Paso, Texas in 1982.
>>
>> I also note that CCR found "the rain coming down on a sunny day" unusual enough to write a song asking if you had ever seen it.
>>
>> Neal
>
> I think of sunshowers, at least the northeastern variety (as opposed to where Creedence hails from, perhaps) as not involving rain during a sunny day but a brief episode of overlap, where the sun peeks out during the rain, often leading to a rainbow as well as sunshowers.  Of course CCR was into extreme weather events, not to mention that bathroom on the right.
>
> LH
>>
>> On Dec 2, 2012, at 10:02 AM, Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>
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>>> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
>>> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
>>> Subject:      Re: OED: "monkey's wedding"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On 12/2/12 8:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>> My grandmother told me about "sunshowers" ca1952.
>>>>
>>>> I thought it was weird that it could rain while the sun was shining. IMO,
>>>> sunshowers are very brief.
>>>>
>>>> I've read (but never heard) "The devil is beating his wife."  I've never
>>>> seen an explanation of it.
>>>>
>>>
>>> "Sunshowers" is the term I was familiar with, growing up in the NY area
>>> in the 50s/60s. When I moved to Texas for grad school, I was told about
>>> "the devil is beating his wife" as a quintessential Texas expression,
>>> although I don't think I ever heard it "in the wild".
>>>
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