Archive for weather
Traffic Caused by Massive Underwear Shortage
“OK, so I had a little gas…”
…said my husband, as i lowered the window, maneuvering through traffic…
Monday mornings. Seasonal Chaos — the movement from loose summer nights into fall. The first full week back to school. A disarmingly sunny few days, meaning we spent too much time outside. Who knows why, exactly, but this morning was particularly rough getting out of the house. Chez moi, it went something like this:
We were all running about twenty minutes late, with the exception of my husband, who left himself about ten minutes to get dressed and get to his bus (a mere soupcon of moments to transition from sleep to work). Groggily, he wandered through the dining room and asked, “could you drop me off at the bus stop?”
My daughter complained that her nose hurt and her “legs were weak.” I did a quick scan of her energy and concluded that she had probably stayed up too late sneaking Harry Potter by flashlight.
The illogical prognosis: “you’ll feel better when you get dressed.” I don’t know why, but this always works. “OK” she said, “is my my Animal Planet t-shirt clean?”
I felt a sharp shock as I realized that no one had bothered to do much laundry this weekend. Did we have clean underwear? As I lifted a very light-feeling box of Weetabix, I then also realized that we’d blown off the grocery shopping, and it was going to be a mix-and-match cereal day.
As we climbed into the car and wobbled into the glorious, disorienting-to-Seattleites morning sunshine, my daughter exclaimed “I forgot to brush my teeth!”
Prognosis: I handed her a Starbucks napkin and told her to do her best.
Then my husband rubbed his chin, “I forgot to shave!”
Prognosis: for once, there would be at least one man walking around today with a sexy, “oops, I forgot to shave” beard that wasn’t staged. (I often wonder, how does James Denton, who plays Mike Delfino, the world’s sexiest plumber on Desperate Housewives, maintain a consistent 5-o’clock shadow? Every. single. episode?)
I left my disarmingly sexy husband (with actual, unstaged bed-head as well) at the bus stop, and hit the express lanes. I grudgingly contributed to the carbon-emissions which were horribly apparent as a brown ribbon within the clear sunny weather, making the bay sparkle and the mountains stand out like they were blue etchings on the sky.
I felt such a sloppy, chaotic mess on this beautiful planet. Why did we seem so out-of-sync with nature this morning? Which planetary transits might have this chaotic effect which disturbed the small, but important details of our morning routines…?
When I hit the gridlock on I-5, I realized, maybe it wasn’t just me and my family. Maybe a lot of us had gotten up late this morning, played too much in the sun this weekend, stayed up too late reading Harry Potter, forgotten to shave, had critically low clean underwear and breakfast cereal levels…and now we were all piling onto the freeway at the same time.
Or, maybe it was a local phenomenon. In Seattle, it’s still sort of summer about halfway through October. While everyone else is putting on scarves, walking through crunchy leaves, and behaving like a Robert Frost poem, Seattleites are still coming home to a Norman Rockwell summer evening on the porch, the barbecue, kids in the sprinkler.
What was it that caused our chaos, and the resulting traffic…I may never know. What I do know, is thank the goddesses and gods for Mike Delfino and his staged beard, and the new season of Desperate Housewives, the start of which will indicate “Fall is Here” to the West Coast.
Bipolar weather
We’re suffering from the heatwave everyone else is, finally. It’s over 90 here. For Seattle, that’s bipolar hell. Our weather, if not totally depressing, turns into this manic sunshine, and no one has air conditioning. We broke out the pinot grigio and played a game of “flying” fish. Where everyone sits outside and tries to throw the cards to each other. We moan about not being in the midwest, where everyone knows how to deal with this kid of heat, and no one’s trying to be cool.
While we were playing flying fish, a thin cloud cover rolled in. It was now 90, and cloudy grey. We’re used to the grey, but the hot throws us off. Then, we started reminiscing about how the clouds ROLL in when you’re in the midwest, and you’re grabbing the lawn chairs and the drinks and running inside because the skies are going to open up and dump on you, any minute.
Here, the clouds drift in, and, a few hours later, it drizzles.
I’m so confused. I’d like weather that responds to its indicators. I’m whining. I want solid black and white meaning. A real four seasons. Waah. “J’ai ennuiiiiiiiii” whined the little girl from Guadalupe, next door.
I’m waiting for the two minds to form one. So I can stop pining for thunderstorms, Indiana, and all that is “good.” So I can get back to life. Darn this Mercurial retrograde.
