As I drove down the hill into our town last night, I looked up at the horizon to see the mountains, usually nice and green, wrapped in an odd haze of gray. At 7PM, it was still 90 degrees. Yeah sure, not so hot compared to other parts of the country, but this is New England! Home of sharp pine trees, sea gulls, and crisp air. Oh right, I do live in western New Hampshire, so scratch the sea gull bit. (They do seem to live at the dump, but for some reason I don’t think of them as the same birds who hover near the clam shacks on the coast.)
A few minutes later I pulled into my driveway, stopping at the bottom to check the mail. My neighbor Sarah was just getting home from the beach. Her tan (might have been a burn, this color blindness is aggravating) indicated that she’d been partaking of more than a little sun worship. She said that there was a land breeze all day, so basically it was as hot over there as it was inland. Uhm, can somebody remind me of why people like to go to the beach?
Apparently, a big part of the country is dealing with a heat wave. A couple of nights ago, I saw somebody tweet that it was 95 degrees with a dew point of 88. Was it in the deep south? No: Minnesota. Crazy.
If you’re thinking that this is going to turn into some kind of screed about global warming, you’re going to be disappointed. Hell, there is more than enough hot air coming out of Washington, D.C. We don’t need to add to the supply. When I was talking to my neighbor, I reminded her that we shouldn’t be complaining because we’d already swore not to back in the middle of February — back when it was nut-chattering cold and we all promised to not complain about the summer weather. She reminded me that, as born New Englanders, we have the right to complain about the weather in all seasons.
True. I’ve said this often, though maybe not as many times as I’ve bitched about the weather. I have friends and relatives in other parts of the country where these supposed extremes are no big deal. There’s the cousin in Texas dealing with the 100+ temperatures. There’s also the writer friend in Arizona who posts photos of his dashboard thermometer when the numbers pass 110. Uhm, can somebody remind me of why people like to live in Texas and Arizona? I’m sure those places have their positive points but hey, I’m from New England. To us, places like Texas can be simply and efficiently described as “down there.”
But … I have already seen the back-to-school ads (What the heck, didn’t they just get out?) so the fall-related sales (Woodsplitter rentals! Snowblower tuneups!) can’t be far behind. Don’t worry, when the first snowflake falls, tune in right here to see me bitching about the weather.
[amazon_enhanced asin=”B000FC2FUG/” container=”” container_class=”” price=”All” background_color=”FFFFFF” link_color=”000000″ text_color=”0000FF” /] [amazon_enhanced asin=”B000TEPFU2/” container=”” container_class=”” price=”All” background_color=”FFFFFF” link_color=”000000″ text_color=”0000FF” /]
- How Eric Clapton’s ‘Me and Mr. Johnson’ Made the Case for British Blues - March 20, 2024
- Why Todd Rundgren’s ‘Back to the Bars’ Remains So Powerful - December 13, 2023
- Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle’ - September 11, 2023
