April Showers Make Moods Sour
A lot of people say that spring brings out a sense of renewal. After the hard, cold months of winter, where everything's cold and dead, the new season brings rains and sunshine and warm weather, while everyone sits around a campfire and sings songs and kittens frolic in sundrenched meadows under rainbows and unicorn farts.
Well, I openly scoff at the notion that spring brings a sense of renewal, and let's not forget the caveat that with spring comes the promise of beautiful summer weather! Folks, summer is not something to be praised. It was nice when I was in school and it meant three months to get away from classrooms and people I didn't like, but now it's just miserable -- especially since I have to be outside all the time, usually wearing hot clothes and carrying around a hundred pounds of crap. It's not my idea of a good time to walk outside and instantly start sweating, where it's so hot and humid that I can't breathe properly. And even when I go to other places, where it gets so hot that it breaks my spirit and actually mentally demoralizes me, people try to cheer things up by saying it's a dry heat. Hey, it may be 140 degrees, but it only feels like a balmy 110 degrees. Listen champ, good on you for being an optimist, but you know what else is a dry heat? An oven.
One of life's little blessings is that we deployed for the winter months, so we only experienced bad heat at the beginning and very end of the deployment. Plus, I like winter. I like the cold and dreariness that it brings. Maybe it's because most of my life I lived in a place that's seen snow three times during my lifetime. And not just flurries, but stick-to-the-ground snow. Oh, and the fourth time in my life that I saw snow was when I was 22 years old, defeatin' terr'ism in Iraq. So 25% of the snow in my life I saw in Iraq. Think about that for a few minutes.
My yankee scum friends feign disbelief when I impart wise, folksy stories from the mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging South, like how I've never seen a frozen lake or how I don't know what it's like to get stuck in my house under a 20-foot snowdrift. I don't even raise such quintessentially Louisianan or Southern things that I know they've never experienced while sitting in the snow eating clam chowda or cheese and brats. I never engage in that kind of argument, comparing whose member is bigger, because I hate doing that -- it smacks of when Marines start telling war stories and arguing over who was deeper in the s--t and ohhh man that's a whole other topic.
But I love the buildup to winter -- fall -- nearly to the point of tears. The sense of renewal I get when the weather finally turns after months and months of oppressive heat is like flipping a light switch. You just cannot top cool, sunny, slightly breezy days where there isn't a cloud in the sky. The wind blows the leaves around, and you hear the crunch-crunch of people walking over them, while what leaves are left are turning red and yellow and orange. College football is rocking, and overdosing on it is even sweeter since I missed the entire last season. I finally get to wear long-sleeve shirts but can still wear shorts. New seasons of excellent TV shows are beginning, like The Office, Family Guy, and American Dad. The stupid bugs are dying. And perhaps the biggest perk is that because it's getting cool, it's finally not so depressing that my air conditioning doesn't work in this Hooverville shanty that they call the enlisted barracks.
Oh yes, and I finally don't have to worry about these living conditions anymore. Because I'm moving into a house on Friday! More on that later.
Well, I openly scoff at the notion that spring brings a sense of renewal, and let's not forget the caveat that with spring comes the promise of beautiful summer weather! Folks, summer is not something to be praised. It was nice when I was in school and it meant three months to get away from classrooms and people I didn't like, but now it's just miserable -- especially since I have to be outside all the time, usually wearing hot clothes and carrying around a hundred pounds of crap. It's not my idea of a good time to walk outside and instantly start sweating, where it's so hot and humid that I can't breathe properly. And even when I go to other places, where it gets so hot that it breaks my spirit and actually mentally demoralizes me, people try to cheer things up by saying it's a dry heat. Hey, it may be 140 degrees, but it only feels like a balmy 110 degrees. Listen champ, good on you for being an optimist, but you know what else is a dry heat? An oven.
One of life's little blessings is that we deployed for the winter months, so we only experienced bad heat at the beginning and very end of the deployment. Plus, I like winter. I like the cold and dreariness that it brings. Maybe it's because most of my life I lived in a place that's seen snow three times during my lifetime. And not just flurries, but stick-to-the-ground snow. Oh, and the fourth time in my life that I saw snow was when I was 22 years old, defeatin' terr'ism in Iraq. So 25% of the snow in my life I saw in Iraq. Think about that for a few minutes.
My yankee scum friends feign disbelief when I impart wise, folksy stories from the mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging South, like how I've never seen a frozen lake or how I don't know what it's like to get stuck in my house under a 20-foot snowdrift. I don't even raise such quintessentially Louisianan or Southern things that I know they've never experienced while sitting in the snow eating clam chowda or cheese and brats. I never engage in that kind of argument, comparing whose member is bigger, because I hate doing that -- it smacks of when Marines start telling war stories and arguing over who was deeper in the s--t and ohhh man that's a whole other topic.
But I love the buildup to winter -- fall -- nearly to the point of tears. The sense of renewal I get when the weather finally turns after months and months of oppressive heat is like flipping a light switch. You just cannot top cool, sunny, slightly breezy days where there isn't a cloud in the sky. The wind blows the leaves around, and you hear the crunch-crunch of people walking over them, while what leaves are left are turning red and yellow and orange. College football is rocking, and overdosing on it is even sweeter since I missed the entire last season. I finally get to wear long-sleeve shirts but can still wear shorts. New seasons of excellent TV shows are beginning, like The Office, Family Guy, and American Dad. The stupid bugs are dying. And perhaps the biggest perk is that because it's getting cool, it's finally not so depressing that my air conditioning doesn't work in this Hooverville shanty that they call the enlisted barracks.
Oh yes, and I finally don't have to worry about these living conditions anymore. Because I'm moving into a house on Friday! More on that later.
Labels: Weather
posted by Ryan at 9/28/2008
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