There are many things of which I am fond- doughnuts, baby dogs, antiquated speech patterns like “things of which I am fond.” There is also a whole host of things I don’t like, such as booty shorts, blueberries and dirty travelers who use their dogs to elicit money from passersby. Most things I’m indifferent towards. Like the weather. I’m from Pittsburgh so weather has never been a concern of mine. It’s always about 49 degrees and threatening rain there, so I never got spoiled by sunny skies. Weather’s not something I think a lot about. But here in Vermont, fretting over the weather is a state past-time.
To me, talking about the weather is about as exciting as sitting at the DMV waiting for your number to be called. Ugh, we’re only on B54? I’m D12. I’ll be here until next week! The weather is something that I, one single human, cannot control. I have heard that if I ride my bike to the grocery store instead of driving my stylish Pontiac, tsunamis will never happen in Southeast Asia again, but I can’t be certain that info is legit.
I can’t see the point in kvetching about the weather. I’m happy when it’s sunny and I’m grumpy when it rains. It’s pretty when it snows, but it stinks when I have to shovel. Beyond that, I don’t care, which is why it was particularly amusing to me when I was assigned the ubiquitous weather story last week.
If you recall last week, Jesus was angry at us or something and let loose a torrent of precipitation that made swimming at Bolton Potholes a particularly dicey affair. It seemed like the rain would never end. Of course if we lived in a place like India or Bangladesh where monsoons bring winds and rains that last for months, we’d really have something to complain about. Like never-ending rain. And mosquitos the size of rat terriers.
So it rained a ton last week, which is a drag for outdoor events, and for my dog, who refuses to pee in the rain. As I had nothing important to do, and because our resident weather reporter was on vaca, the metro editor asked me if I’d do a ripping expose on rain. Never one to turn down an awesome assignment, I jumped at the chance to go after rain on his own turf. I was going to track him down and make him answer for the havoc he had caused. This is what a shoeleather reporter like me was made to do.
I gathered up my trusty notebook and pencil and hit the streets. I didn’t get farther than the front door before I realized it was raining and there was no way in H.E. double hockey sticks that I was going out in that mess. Did I say I was an intrepid reporter? I meant I am happy sitting at my desk gazing at my navel. But it had to be done. The people were clamoring for a story about the weather and I wasn’t going to let them down.
Here’s what I learned: the jetstream is screwy. It’s confused, it’s going the wrong direction, it needs a new GPS unit. We’re in for more rain in August. People are P.O.-ed. They’re not going to take it. They’re going to move to Arizona or some similarly dessicated place. And I can dig it. You wait out the 10-month-long winter in hopes of a brief respite of sunshine and a sallow citizenry parading around the Waterfront in their swim suits. Then it rains. Curses!
Before I was a professional newspaperwoman, I was a housemistress at a boarding school in England. Over there, when people didn’t haven anything nice to say to you, which was nearly all the time in my experience, they talk about the weather. Ad nauseum. After my two years there, I could have been a meteorologist, minus the green screen and the pancake make-up. It always surprised me how weather played such a prominent role in their lives since there were only two different types of days there- overcast with drizzle and overcast without.
I guess weather’s just not my thing. I can roll with it, as long as it’s not flooding my basement or sweeping my dog out to sea. The fact that I’ve written this post means I’m almost certain to get struck by lightening on my walk home from work.
