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Wherever I go, people are trying hard to be upbeat about the weather. As the year without a summer continues, every drop of golden sun has us looking at the blue patches in the sky in the hope that this is the day we finally get something besides dense clouds and an icy breeze out of stubborn Mother Nature. “Looks like it’s turning into a nice day,” the guy at the bank said to me today. Dream on, buddy. It didn’t turn into anything.
Believe me, I’m not asking for the kind of summer people in the East and Midwest have to endure. I did once like hot weather more than I do now, but between 100 degree temperatures and 100 percent humidity, or what we’re getting here in the North Bay, I’ll take this. It does get old, though. It feels like a permanent mantle of depression, the emotional kind as well as the meteorological kind.
It’s like having an air conditioner with no “off” switch. In fact, the fog and low clouds would hug the coast on normal summer days in past years, but by mid morning they’d be gone in inland areas like the patch of ground where I live. Then every three or four days, after what passes for a heat wave here, the fog would stay inland for a day or two. We call it our natural air conditioning. This summer has been unnaturally gloomy, though.
Every time we do have a warm day, as rare as they are, it’s a reason to rejoice. We do have a few of those, even during this non-summer, and maybe it’s their rarity that has brought me out of the house and into the world when they occur. I even got a bit of a sunburn last week on the one day the sun was bright enough to do that to me. I should thank the climate changers for forcing me to enjoy the outdoors when I can. |
