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THE WEATHER DOESN'T
BRING EVERYONE TOGETHER
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Spring has sprung. As I write this, the glorious sun is shining
and it's a balmy 65 degrees outside. The cold and rainy days that have
plagued us for months have finally become a distant memory.
Even though Spring doesn't officially begin until tomorrow, I
couldn't wait to call my brother-in-law in Montreal and tell him the good
news.
"It's been a long, miserable Winter," I happily
exclaimed when he answered the phone. "I don't know how I survived it,
but I did."
"Are you saying it's over?" he asked.
"Well, Spring doesn't officially start until March 20th,
but the rain has stopped and I'm not suffering through those 52 degree days
anymore. So what the heck," I chirped. "Happy Spring."
He wasn't amused. "You do realize it's snowing here today,
and we had a high of 24 degrees and a low of 2. And that's Fahrenheit,
not Celsius. I know the difference."
Obviously, I had called the wrong person to whine about our
cold, rainy winter. But I wasn't about to give up easily.
"Have you no sympathy for Californians?" I asked.
"Do you have any idea how miserable we've been for the last four
months. It's the only thing people can talk about."
"I'd like to get off the phone now. I need to shovel my
driveway....again."
I was losing him, so I pulled out the clincher. I had just read
a report from ABC7 meteorologist Mike Nicco, and I couldn't wait to drop it
on my unsympathetic brother-in-law.
"You think you had a bad February," I said.
"Well, listen to this, buddy. More than 18 trillion gallons of water
fell on California in February alone. That's equivalent to 27 million
Olympic-sized swimming pools. And if you weighed it, it would equal 150
trillion pounds of water. And most of it fell on my head!"
For some reason, he was still unimpressed, despite hearing such
monumental numbers. I emphasized that those numbers were just for February.
November through January were miserable, too. But he didn't seem to care.
No one takes pity on Californians anymore, except, of course,
fellow Californians. If there's one subject that can pull people together,
it's the weather. It seems every Californian has been complaining this
Winter about the incessant rain.
Whatever happened to our customary "False Spring,"
that week in February where we're suddenly basking in 70 degree weather and
brilliant sunshine? It never occurred this year---the record rainfall
drowned it out.
The Winter just went on and on, cold and rainy. Until today, I
had three layers on at all times. It's hard to believe any human being can
put up with such misery. Fortunately, my fellow Californians were in it with
me, together all the way.
All of our whining came to an end last Thursday. It was
lunchtime, and I walked outside and felt a warmth on my shoulders. I took
off my jacket and then, throwing caution to the wind (of which there was
none), I took off my sweater. Miraculously, I was still warm and dry.
"Hallelujah!" I cried to no one in particular.
"The long, cruel Winter is over, and I can picture baseball, barbecues
and shorts again. All hail California!"
I got a few weird looks, but most people understood. They were
smiling, and I even walked by an outside cafe with occupied tables. Everyone
seemed happier.
Since my brother-in-law hadn't hung up on me yet, I explained
the joy I felt of having the sun warm my shoulders with the mid-sixties
temperature. That's when he hung up.
Naturally, I called him back. "Your time will come,"
I said in as soothing a voice as I could muster. "I just checked the
weather for Montreal and it's going to be almost 40 degrees at the end of
next week. Then we can both say that we survived a grueling Winter."
There was a long pause and I sensed what he was doing, but I
let him do it, anyway. "I just checked the weather for San
Francisco," he said, a little too gleefully. "And it's supposed to
rain at the end of next week."
Nooooooo! It looks like our suffering would continue,
just like the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. The only difference is that
we're not likely to get any sympathy from anyone east of Modesto.
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