Kage Baker loved heat. I don’t. It makes me cranky and mean and hot.
Well, (says a voice in my head reasonably) what do you expect heat to do? I don’t know but I don’t like this. Gangrenous or leprous would be preferable to the feeling that I am being slowly rendered down for cooking oil.
I had to venture out into the world today to run errands. It sucked. My corner of the world seems to have been taken over by malignant pod-people with bad taste, no peripheral vision on the road, and inadequate hygiene. The Cat Madam won’t stay off my keyboard and has already opened and randomly edited two story fragments – and now I have to re-write Marswife. The humidity is 50%, which is just absurd. And I’m out of plums.
So there will be no blog today, due to the power failure. Oh, we still have plenty of electricity: my power has failed. My central processor has melted and my brain is leaking out my ears. And I’m nasty-tempered with it, too.
Gonna go eat dill pickles and swig cold water. Then peel the damned Cat Madam off my keyboard and shoot some zombies. And then go look at pictures of Mars. Thank God for anger displacement activities!
Kathleen, Kage and the Company 
Heat? Definitely gak, ick, and if it’s not too unseasonable, Bah Humbug! Southern NM seems to have been let off having any more over-100 degree days this week, but the humidity is still up (for here) since Ma Nature is still deciding whether we’re going to have a rainy season this year. One newspaper referred to it as the Nonsoon. Lots of clouds, maybe some impressive thunder and lightning, but pretty paltry in the water-falling department.
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Nonsoon! Oh, I like that!
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Sorry to be harbinger of doom here, but you guys in the southwestern USA are NOT going to get a rainy season this year. Why? BECAUSE ALL OF THE (cold) RAIN IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE HAS DECIDED TO FALL ON THE UK this summer!!!!! It has rained nearly every day — all day — since the beginning of April, at least where we live in south-central Scotland.
Crops have failed, nobody is buying summer goodies and businesses are going under (in every sense of the word.) Towns and villages have been incorporated into the river they used to lie beside. Slugs rule. Beef stew with root vegetables has become my comfort food. Vitamin D comes only in a bottle. I’m going to get rid of my lawn mower and acquire a sheep.
Mind-numbing stuff. Can we work out a way to share our weather? Surely, if each of us stands outdoors every day — me with my bent brolly, you(ze) with your sun parasol(s) — and we face each other and BLOW very hard, we could have some effect???
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Jan – Yes, please. let’s trade. We get less than 10 inches of rain even in a good year, and the local terror is that the chile crop, basic to local cuisine, might fail. Without it, dios mio!, we might have to eat – oh no! – gringo food.
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Yup. Turnips.
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Here is my complaint: I don’t do hot weather. I grew up in Southern California where, except when the East Wind was blowing (I was a kid before everyone got all fancy and started calling the East Wind the Santa Ana winds), even if it was hot during the middle of the day, the sea breeze came in by about 4 p.m., and by 6 p.m. or so, it would be in the 60s.
However, I live in Fresno now. We don’t get the sea breeze much in the summer. We often don’t get any kind of breeze in the summer. So, this morning’s weather report is that by the weekend we will be having highs in the 109 F to 110 F range. This does not make me even a little happy.
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Alas and alack, climate change has something rotten in store for all of us. Although here in California we’re doing better than many folks – like, the rest of the US, which is alternately on fire, blown away and flooded – everyone is going to find something horrid to which they must adjust. But when the chili crop is failing and there’s too much rain in Scotland for SCOTS – man, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. The temperature here in California is still in the historical seasonal range: on the high end, but not that unusual. I’ve lived here nearly 60 years, and August and September have always been our too-hot-to-live months … but the rainy season, when it comes, doesn’t come at the same time anymore. It’s shifted. It’s a real change. Life goes on and maybe it’s time to evolve again.
BTW, turnips are good food. I have a recipe for turnips in cream that is a real delight – it’s 600 years old, but still yummy. Personally, I like all kinds of neeps. But I’m descended almost entirely from Celts …
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The oddest thing is, the far north of Scotland and the Hebrides are having one of their dryest years ever! In fact, they were in drought for a while, with hill fires and all that stuff. Ullapool (my favourite haunt) has had a cracking summer season, best in a long time, sunny, warm (not hot, never HOT) and dry. I think both of areas have experienced rain in the past week or so, but virtually none before that. Even their reservoirs are down. Go figure!
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Microclimates. California is lousy with ’em. So are the British Isles, evidently – judging by historical records, anyway, and what things would famously only grow well in certain areas. That’s why Kage set Iden’s Garden in the lush, tropical soil of Kent …
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Well, we’ve certainly got ‘lush’ …you should see my lawn! It’s about a foot high – again. And too wet to mow. Again. (This is me adding my own complaints! Careful what you wish for…)
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Everybody always has something to say about the weather – that’s why it’s so interesting. And it’s getting more so all the time.
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Here’s my favourite remark about weather. It was made to me by a fellow who picked me up while hitchhiking (many moons ago) in 22-below-zero (Michigan.) I got in the car and remarked on how cold it was (thinking it was an appropriate remark that particular day) and he said:
When it comes to weather, man’s a fool
When it’s hot, he wants it cool
When it’s cool, he wants it hot
He only wants it, when it’s not
I’ve forgotten many things in my long-ish life, but not that guy or his wee poem!
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