Juneuary

Today is the longest day of the year and people in Seattle are complaining and calling it Juneuary – still in the 50’s and rainy. When I lived in Boulder and was suffering 100º temperatures for ten days in a row, people told me it was never “that” bad. The truth about weather is that some years are hotter, wetter, grayer, or colder than others.

  One September in London, England, we hit a heat wave. We took a shower before dinner, and again after we came back. There was no air conditioning in the charming old hotel and I opened the window only a little because, noticing all of the bird poop on the sill, I didn’t want any wildlife flying around while we were sleeping. By the end of the night, we had the window all the way up, not caring whether the pigeons wanted to roost on our heads! Standing in line for a museum the next day, we struck up a conversation with the Brit in line ahead of us. I commented on how hot it was, to which he wryly replied, “Yeah, it happens every year, and we always act surprised! Who would have thought that it would get hot in the summer?”

  Seattle had a mild winter this year. No blizzards shut down the city like last year. I guess I can focus on the fact that it isn’t sunny, and then wait for it to hit 95º a month from now and complain that it is too hot. Or I can look for something that IS pleasing. I saw a hummingbird working the columbine blossoms out front this morning. And the iris has three big deep purple blossoms on it. The apple trees are getting heavy with fruit and although the tomatoes are shivering and the slugs are getting fat on the spinach, the lavender is thriving and the rhubarb and artichokes are huge.

  Being part of planet Earth is a lot more fun when I notice what is thriving than what isn’t. And I think I’ll give up working on my machine to control the weather.