Is it my imagination, or has the weather been weird lately?
Is it my imagination, or has the weather been weird lately?
It’s June, right?
Isn’t June summer, if not officially until June 21? Isn’t June the month of graduations, weddings and Father’s Day? The month before the Fourth of July?
Graduates should not have to wear earmuffs under their mortarboards. Brides should not have to wear long underwear under their gowns. And it’s going to be hard to find a muffler for Dad, this time of year.
I know June in this area is not always hot, as in “96 degrees, 80 percent humidity” hot. But isn’t it at least supposed to be warm? As in “not having to turn on the heat” warm?
Isn’t the sun supposed to shine?
My gloomy perceptions may be partly because I get up and drive to Monterey for work many days, and I know that Monterey stays overcast and cool longer than we do farther inland.
But to tell you the truth I can’t remember what June is supposed to be like and I just petulantly want it to be warm and sunny for a while.
I know that the Horse Show Parade, near the end of the month, has required a sweater for comfort as often as not. That cool breeze that comes through the valley is mainly welcome for natural air conditioning but can make planning outdoor activities kind of tricky.
Right now I just want to wear sandals and drink lemonade. Without shivering.
National magazines don’t help. They feature spreads of elegant people sitting on a deck, shoes off, drinking piña coladas as the sun sets.
I look at the sun setting in these photos and want to go get a blanket. Over the years, since moving here from Illinois, where it doesn’t cool off at all from May till August, I’ve gotten used to the cool summer nights and learned to take a sweater with me if I’m going to be out late.
Even so, I can’t help my hankering for popsicle weather.
Imagine it being hot enough you would want to run through a sprinkler.
If I’m right, and it’s cooler than usual even for California, this would seem to contradict our concern about global warming, right? Well, not really. The thing about global warming, as I understand it, is that it’s going to create climate change of all kinds, much of it unpredictable.
I don’t know what combination of factors might create a cooler summer here, and of course it could be just a random fluctuation with no sinister implications, like a wet spring or a dry winter or a warm winter.
But when the Horse Show rolls around later this month, I want to sit in the shady stands and appreciate the shade. I want to look out at the competitors and admire their fortitude as they handle the bright sun, the dust and the heat that are part of every horse show. And I don’t want to be wearing mittens.
