I did other things today besides get mad this morning.
I finished a freelance project (and there’s a new one to start tomorrow); and went for a swim (only needing to “rest stroke” about three or four times in the whole forty minutes); and watered everybody; and even worked on a jigsaw puzzle.
And thought about the weather.
When I told people I was moving to Oregon (from California), the first thing I think literally EVERYONE said to me was, “But it rains so much there!” “But the weather!” “Will you be able to stand it?” I mean, even before “But you’ve spent your whole life in California, your family is here, what about your career and all your friends,” etc etc. No: everyone was the most concerned about the weather.
I don’t think that’s just a silly California obsession. People talk about the weather even more here. Which makes sense: there’s more of it to talk about.
When they would present me with those concerns, I breezily laughed them off. Heck, I’d looked at housing prices: it would take a LOT of rain to dampen the exquisite pleasure of actually being able to own a home.
And now? Well, it’s been over a year, and…I think the weather is just fine.
That doesn’t mean I won’t bitch about it. Especially when it’s cold. (Like I did yesterday.) 🙂 It doesn’t mean I don’t suffer when it gets hot, and I can’t sleep, and I sponge myself off with a cold washcloth and am sticky again thirty seconds later. But I LOVE the dramatic turnings of the seasons. I LOVE how things grow and bloom and proliferate (and need serious weeding) and go to seed and die and turn back into sticks and mud…only to repeat the whole cycle again next year. I LOVE walking down the street and eating incredible ripe blackberries off a neighbor’s vine (yes, I had permission!).
If I had one complaint? One little tweak? I do rather wish it could have found a way to be pleasant when my folks visited, in July. After they’d braved the blizzards (okay, just snow, but still) to come last Thanksgiving, and I promised them that summertime would be lovely…they came and it rained on them practically the whole time. That was sort of a bummer.
But it was a “late spring” and a pretty cool summer (I never ended up putting the window air-conditioning units back up in the bedrooms), and I still think it was great. I mean, I hope there’s a bit more hot weather to come, but tomorrow is September, and…I’m guessing we’ll be seeing the crazy spiderwebs in everyone’s yards soon.
Which means snow is just around the corner. 🙂