Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Summer, come back to me....



If you’ve never lived in the Pacific Northwest (pity party for you) you probably aren’t aware of the subtle differences between god’s country and that hell hole you live in. Up here we have a beautiful rocky coast with cliffs toward the north and massive dunes to the south. Your coast is probably just flat and dull---that is if you have any coast at all. We have lush, green mountains and volcanoes (in fact Portland is the only city on the contential US with a volcano within it's city limits, Mt Tabor) as well as high deserts in central and eastern Oregon. Our summers here are glorious, yet painfully short---the rain ends in mid July and starts back up in mid October, so we cherish the sun while we are treated to it. A great part of the summers is that the sun comes up early and stays out well past nine o'clock at night. (The drawback to that is that it sets before 4:30 in December, but we'll worry about that in a few months.) That said, when I got up this morning at 6:00 the sun was not yet out; up until this morning the sun was at least peeking in between the curtains of my bedroom by the time the alarm jolted me out of my slumber. Yesterday evening the sun was setting just after 8. The horror! Winter is upon us, my friends, and for that I'm more than just a little pissed. Insult to injury, the high today will only be 70. Hellooooooooo, it's August! What happened to global warming? I want my summer back, and I want it back NOW!

When I first moved here from Dallas I worked with a ditzy blond who, in her singular moment of brilliance, commented on the extended rainy season, saying "If it was beautiful like our summers all year everyone would want to live here". True dat. I just thing we need to re-negotiate for a slightly longer season, and then make sure the weather sticks to it's end of the bargain. It's the least we deserve for putting up with 9 months of soggy weather.

So if any of you, gentle reader, are from Florida or Arizona and have some extra sunshine and warm weather lying around that you don't think you'll get to, please send it our way. We will not abuse it and we'll love you forever. Hell, we'll let you live here in the summers, too! We'll make room.

5 comments:

Steven said...

Shhhh!! Don't tell anyone about our natural treasures.

We're California's Canada and Washington's Mexico.

Gnomeself Be True said...

Nice picture of Rufus' good side.
It's 97 now, headed to 101.
It rained here yesterday, in the middle of the day. Everyone went to windows here at work, to see what that looked like.

Ed & Jeanne said...

You forgot: Crater Lake, second deepest lake in the world and one of the clearest lakes in the world; I think you can see clearly about 40 feet down. Crater Lake also gets more snow accumulation in a season than anywhere in the world; they have to close the resort and roads there. Then there is Forest Park, the only large undeveloped forest in a city in the USA. Oh, and Mt. Hood is the only place in the USA that has summer skiing. Plus, given 9 months of rain; I don't have to pump my own gas! And lastly, Suz is in Portland, what more could you want!

House of Suz said...

Hey now, don't be point out the obvious, me being a big draw to Ptown.

I've never been to Crater Lake so that's why it ain't on my list.

Gnomeself Be True said...

Yea, you blew it there E. You should have mentioned the paganmonster tour.