Is this what they mean by "going to the dark side"?

I like to think of myself as "unique".  My daughters very kindly refer to me as "quirky".  Some others just think I'm weird. 

Why do I bring this up now?  Because this morning as I was giving Jax, our SuperDog, his first walk of the day, I realized that dawn is now coming noticeably later, and I like it. 

Autumn is my favorite season for a variety of reasons, one of which being the days are becoming shorter by about a minute a day.  Yea!  I also like a few rainy days now and then, which are more likely in autumn than in summer.  And of course, autumn also = the start of football season.  Ha!  Take that hot, sweaty, sticky summer!

I've become a fairly successful minimalist....except for my collection of coats and jackets.  I LOVE coats and jackets.  I have light windbreakers, a GoreTex rain jacket, a heeeeeavy LL Bean arctic parka, and a jacket for pretty much everything else in between.  This time of year I'm always optimistic it will be a cold enough winter to wear some of them.

Unique, quirky, or weird....I'll answer to any of them.  Just don't call me Shirley.  :)

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You've heard the old saying, "Make hay while the sun shines"?  That's pretty much my work ethic.  I feel like if it's still daylight, I should be working or doing one chore or another.  When evening comes, it's time to put my tools down, metaphorically, and relax.  These days I don't have the energy I once did, so relaxing while the sun is still high sorta bothers me.  The earlier it gets dark, the less guilty I feel.

Can you imagine how rested people must have been 150 years ago?  When the sun went down there was little else to do but go to bed and sleep, or maybe make more little farm workers.  Candlelight barely illuminated the space you were sitting in.  Later, coal oil or whale oil lanterns offered a chance to see better later into the night, but those fuels were expensive.  

The big breakthrough came with successful oil drilling and refining in the late 1850's.  Back then the refined petroleum product of choice was not gasoline or diesel (there were virtually no internal combustion engines back then), but kerosene.  Kerosene was a much more affordable fuel, and burned much brighter, too.  That gave John D. Rockefeller the light he needed to count his money late into the night.  Thomas Edison's electric lighting was just the icing on the cake of illumination progress.

I think today we have it just about right:  It gets dark early enough to allow for some rest time before bed, yet a flip of a switch gives us enough light to write unique / quirky / weird blog posts. :)

S

It's all a matter of perspective

I'm sure if I lived in Minnesota or Pennsylvania or somewhere in New England I would be sick of winter too, and would be giddy thinking about all the things I was going to do outside once it got warmer.

But I don't. I live in Texas (which all things considered is a pretty good place to live).  Yesterday it hit 82 degrees here, and I broke a sweat.  Just thinking about what's to come debilitates me.

I'm Soooooo over summer.

What's that?  It's just now Spring?  Summer won't even arrive for three more months?  DOH!

Maybe I need a motor home so I can just keep moving along, chasing cool comfortable weather wherever it goes.  I suppose it's just my inner Don Quixote tilting at windmills again.

S

One down, two to go

Summer in Texas is a miserable, disgusting time of the year.  Anyone who disagrees has been out in it too long.  When you open the door first thing in the morning to step out to get the newspaper, for example, and you're immediately hit by a blast of air so hot and muggy your glasses fog up, it makes you want to just crank down the A/C and go back to bed.

This climate change thing has blindsided a lot of people this year.  Blizzards when they weren't supposed to, heat waves where we weren't supposed to, floods, freak sand storms....what's next?  But oddly enough, Dallas has so far had a fairly palatable summer.  We've had a few 100 degree days, but we've also had a few days that never even climbed into the 90's. 

This morning before 7 I took Luke the Wonderdog out for a long walk.  My weather app said the temp was 74 degrees, but a pretty stiff breeze made it feel like it was in the 60's.  And if the weatherguessers are to be believed, this will be one of those sub-90 degree days.  SWEET!

I'm not foolish enough to expect August and September to be like our July was, but at least I only have two more months of misery to endure before October relief arrives.

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I like lists.  Not "To Do" lists, but lists of fun things.  Like today on Yahoo news, for example, it had a list of the 10 coolest summer cities (we're talking temperatures), and also the 10 hottest.  

Two of the top 10 coolest are among my personal favorite cities, too:  Seattle and Denver.  Seattle because of its uniqueness and Denver because it's just a short drive (by Texas standards) to the mountains.  THE mountains.  THE ROCKY mountains.  I love THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.  *insert little tiny heart shape symbol here*

My new address when I win the lottery

No surprise, 4 of the top 10 hottest summer cities were in Texas, Dallas being #3.  What's that old saying?...."I've got a spot in heaven guaranteed 'cause I've already done my time in hell."

Carry on and stay cool.

S

Careful what you pray for

I think I've figured out why the weather this summer is so hot:  During last winter's never-ending blizzard all you Yankees got down on your knees at the same time and said, "Dear God, PLEEEEEEEZE make this snow stop and give us some heat."  And hearing it from all sides He said, "OK, done."  Uh Huh....that was it.

There are some things that you can just count on.  Every spring the grass greens up and the trees bloom.  The track of the sun moves a little closer to the equator, and the temperature gets warmer miserably hot.  And I write a blog post bitching about the grass getting greener and needing mowing, the trees blooming and making me sneeze, and the sun track moving toward the equator making it miserably hot. 

Summertime as a school-age kid was fun, for obvious reason....school was out for 3 months.  WooHoo!  Even tempered by the fact that I was charged with mowing our lawn, summer was still a fun time.  

Now as an adult, however, I see absolutely NO redeeming social value whatsoever to summer.  Working/playing outside in the summer makes us HOT.  When we get hot we SWEAT.  When we sweat we STINK.  So basically we just walk around STINKING up the place for 3 months.  Why would anyone want to do that?  I'm pretty sure "summer" is an old Indian word for "stink".  

The only excuse I can figure for there even being a summer at all is because God must have wanted to make it up to you Yankees for sticking you way up north like that with all those blizzards.  "Oops, sorry guys.  To make it up to you I'll give you a few months of warmth, OK?  We good?"  But then He realized that was burning all us southerners to a crisp, so He gave us air conditioning....and ice cream with fresh strawberries on top. ;) 

*Sigh*  Oh well, I guess it's all part of The Plan.  Enjoy your Saturday, and stay cool.

S

So, how do you like summer so far, Scott?

We're only four days into summer and I've already had a near-death heat-related experience.

I spent 4 hours outside yesterday afternoon and thought I was gonna die.  I came home around 5 drenched in sweat and went straight to the shower.  I turned on the shower water and began to undress and realized I couldn't get my t-shirt off.  It was stuck to my back.

I wrestled with that damn thing for 10 minutes and finally got it up my back to my neck, and managed to get one arm half way out, when things went straight to hell.  My left arm was sticking half in and half out of its sleeve, my right arm was behind my head tugging for all I was worth to get get the t-shirt up and over my head, while my head was bent straight down on my chest.  I needed to get my head back up so some oxygen could make it into my lungs.  I couldn't move and I couldn't see because salty sweat was in my eyes.  I was in a helluva shape.

I figured I was either going to have to call for help, rip my t-shirt to shreds to get it off, or say "hey" to Jesus.  With hot water running out it was now or never.  One last try....and I was free!  The t-shirt was a bit stretched out, but I think it's salvageable.  

Then my underwear.  I couldn't just drop 'em and step out.  I had to roll the waistband down....it sounded like velcro pulling apart as it broke its grip on my sweaty butt.  (Not a pretty visual, is it?)

You know that story about Rip Van Winkle?  Is that even possible?  I don't want to sleep for 20 years, but I wouldn't mind hibernating in a cool place until, say, early October.

All things considered I guess it could be worse.  In addition to this #$%^&* heat and humidity, my brother is having a colonoscopy on Wednesday and a tooth extraction on Friday, and the reconstruction first step for a tooth implant.

Maybe I'd best count my blessings and just suffer in silence.

Here's to you, summer.  ;)

S

Winter arrives this evening at 6....

....and will be gone by noon tomorrow. I'm not joking.  That's likely to be all the winter we have this year in Dallas.  By tonight it will begin to rain, sleet, and snow.  No accumulation is expected, however, as the temp overnight isn't expected to drop below freezing.  High tomorrow, 47.  Mid 60's by Wednesday.  Now my concern is if it's this warm during the "winter", how hot is it going to be during the "summer"?

Here's my plan:  Y'all stop driving.  Ride bikes or skateboards instead.  And start giving all the cows Bean-O.  Between you people driving and the cows farting you're screwing up the atmosphere.  Is a couple inches of snow and maybe a few pitiful snowmen too much to ask for?  I WANT MY WINTER BACK, DAMMIT!

S

Mother Nature is just jerkin' my chain

After a few days of cool weather last week and even a little rain, and after officially ushering in autumn last Friday, I allowed myself to be lulled into thinking summer was over.  Ummm....not quite.  Today it was up to 95 degrees.  Not 107 thank God, but come on.  Enough already!

I have a new GoreTex light parka that really needs to be tried out.  A short backpacking trip later this year when it's cooler might be nice, but as K doesn't have a good sleeping bag (yet), timing is touchy.  I've stayed toasty warm in mine when it was in single digits outside, but K doesn't have as much natural "insulation" as I do.  And I don't think her comfort range is as wide as mine.  I'll need to get her toughened up for our eventual move to the mountains.  I wish I could say that would be next year, but honestly I don't think it can happen that soon.  I wish I was a patient person, but I'm not.  Grrrrrr....

S