photo by Liz Howell
Everyone says the weather has been weird, but it’s all perfectly normal. For somewhere else or sometime else. It’s merely a matter of mix-ups in fulfillment and delivery, as if the angel at heaven’s Weather Desk is the love child of an airport ticket agent and a tech-support chatbot. So of course it’s going to feel chaotic. There’s going to be people sleeping on the floor, drooling on their carry-ons, there’ll be trapped birds adapting to a diet of Cinnabon crumbs. We’ll get used to it.
Last month, for instance, we had a perfectly gorgeous autumn around here in Portland, with highs in the seventies, and lows in the fifties. It was August, but I wasn’t complaining. September’s arrival tipped the region into the triple digits and residents were warned to protect themselves from shards of broken records. There’s no point in complaining; they say you can’t do anything about the weather. Which is not strictly true. We’ve already done more about the weather than really needed to be done, and now, according to the smart people, we need to adapt. Anyone not on board can just go to hell, or Phoenix.
And since prediction modeling has become so accurate, that should be a snap. The upper regions of Manitoba are bracing for a plague of invasive attack parakeets. There’s plenty of time to stock up on plastic bags for our heads for the coming miasma of methane-released microbes, and video tutorials for how to cinch them at the neck.
It will be an adjustment. Last winter some sort of geographical splice sent us several days that had originally been planned for the Yukon, and I, for one, will not soon forget the sight of Portlanders standing around perplexed in all their raingear, poking at their phones for advice for what else they might conceivably put on. Clearly much thicker socks would be required, and then there’s the problem of getting one’s sandals on over them.
With the right attitude, we’ll be fine. Yes, there are problems in hurricane country, but you can’t beat the convenience of landing fresh fish from your living room sofa.
The wildfire situation is hard to shine up, although if you’re merely downwind of a conflagration, the smoke does cut down on the solar heat. This may improve over time, though, since we’ve deforested most of the planet and a lot of what’s left has burned up.
Various changes in oxygen levels in the atmosphere over the eons have accompanied a rise in enormous insects. It’ll be dragonfly steaks for days, and an easy commute downtown on the 5:15 cockroach.
Change is money, people. And the smart money is buying up future beachfront property in central Florida and sewing up the salvage market in tornado alley.
I’ll be okay. I got air conditioning for the first time last year, but I’ve only turned it on three times, all three because we were getting company. Company gets fresh towels, flower arrangements, and AC. I dislike heat but have learned my whole life to be comfortable in a wide range of temperatures. I’m going out proud without AC, like a cavewoman, baby.
A cavewoman with internet, a car, and avocados all year.
I just read a frightening novel called HUM (short for humanoid, the AI creatures that inhabit our future world). The climate devastation in this future fiction-that-is-all-too-real is the heart of the story and it doesn’t sound that far off.
I can’t even fully comprehend the danger of AI but I’m deeply suspicious because there are already far too many people smarter than me.
Hilarious! That fake fall in August just ruined me for even believing that the real fall would actually come or that we would ever get rain. Glory Glory… it was pouring this morning on our walk. I am not a cavewoman but do walk in short sleeves 50′ and above… Thanks for the good morning laugh!
Ain’t it swell? Yes, I DID plan to have some folks over to sit on the patio and have beers, but I guess we can go indoors…
….and speaking of sitting on the patio, I just learned that in our area we have been invaded by “tiger mosquitos”. They come from some place other than here, and apparently they are really nasty. I guess that we will soon be erecting those ridiculous-looking mosquito-net tents over our patios, like one sees in Florida.
Thank you for the visual of Portlanders in their sandals: “Clearly much thicker socks would be required, and then there’s the problem of getting one’s sandals on over them.”
Wore my socks and sandals to Maine once and got openly hooted at. I had no idea it wasn’t cool.
Some scientists call it “global weirding”!
That lightens it up a bit…
The weird weather has definitely impacted local produce and its prices around here. We had a cool, wet Spring, followed by a heat wave during most of the summer. Now, it’s cool again.
I told my local farm market guy, Jimmy, about my tomatoes. I planted Early Girls and Beefsteaks (which SHOULD be huge and juicy.) The Early Girls are the size of cherry tomatoes — when they ripen at all. Same with our Romas. Our Beefsteaks are all small and green. Jimmy said that has been a problem with everyone’s garden around here, because the heat wave dried up most of the blossoms on the tomatoes, so the yield was smaller in two ways. Hence the hefty prices for tomatoes.
I don’t think that I’ll be planting vegetables anymore. It’s just too much work with so little result. And Jimmy DOES get terrific tomatoes from NJ. I’ll just plant herbs in the cold frame to winter over.
You gotta plant tomatoes. It’s the law.
It’s hard to laugh, but you gave us a few breaks here. Thanks.
I try, honest I do!
It’s hard to laugh, but you gave us a few breaks here. Thanks.
Where are you? Not to be nosy, y’know, but…
NE Portland, Oregon!