Conversations about the weather have a bad rap.
Related conversations with a bad rap include: "How 'bout them Yankees?" which I will never be able to replace in my mind no matter how irrelevant it is in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Ohio, or any other place I've lived or -ites I've lived among. There will be no "How 'bout them Twins?" or "Go Packs!" or "Da Bears!" for me, no sirree. Not that any of these openers would really whip me into a verbal frenzy. I can't really carry a conversation about sports.
But I can talk about the weather for quite some time. When I was a hall receptionist back at St. Olaf, our collegiate habitat formed the basis for my conversations with most passersby: "Little cold?" "Is it nice out? I might go lay out in the Quad later."
Now, as a young adult (new adult?), it still provides fodder for conversation, even with people I see and talk to on a daily basis and people I have a deeper relationship with. And as it turns out, the weather is actually central to a lot of facets of my life as a young adult. Thus its rampant appearances in small talk, and its centrality in conversation in general. Observe.
***
For the past few days in Delaware we've had temperatures in the mid-80s. That's right. I remember last week leaving for work in 29-degree weather. To me this kind of weather turnaround is somewhat alarming, but according to my Maryland-native coworker this is normal in these parts.
When I ran those 4 miles on Saturday morning, it was probably around 40° when we started running and maybe had reached 50° by the end; yesterday, I did about 3.5 miles around the Newark Reservoir after work at 85° and I will tell you that I felt the difference. It worries me a little to think about the Spartan race in July... But as Jason constantly reminds me, "The mud will help!" I sure hope so! 5 miles in the heat of summer sounds pretty daunting right about now.
Meanwhile, while I'm stealing moments to slip out of my sweater at work, my friends and relatives in Minnesota are wading through several inches of snow. Typical. A friend of mine who now lives in D.C. posted on Facebook this morning: "My facebook feed is alternating pictures of snow in MN and cherry blossoms in DC. Glad I am on the warmer side of things." Hear, hear.
Still, I can't help wondering if these strange weather events have been happening throughout my lifetime or if they are happening more and more as I get older; and if it is the latter, I can't help but worry a little that climate change is happening a lot faster than they told me it would when I learned about it in science class back in fifth grade. I swear I remember having gorgeous spring days, weeks on end, in fact, in March, right in between winter and summer. Am I hallucinating? At this rate, I predict that by the time I have kids, hurricanes will be hitting the eastern seaboard, as far north as Nova Scotia, every fall; most of the U.S. won't get any snow until about March, when we will all get dumped on -- repeatedly; most waterfront towns (rivers and oceans, mostly, but potentially also lakes) will have been chased to higher ground; and Manhattan will be underwater. Not quite The Day After Tomorrow; maybe more like The Decade After This One. Or The Year After Next.
On a personal level, the greatest immediate effect of the sudden weather change is on my mood. I am much, much happier lately. I can attribute this state of mind to a few factors, but I know for a fact a lot of it has to do with the amount of sunshine I have seen in the past few weeks, and the amount of fresh air I breathe on our lunchtime walks at work. Seasonal affect disorder has been on my list of things to blog about for a few weeks now, and now that I feel more steady on my proverbial feet I would like to make a resolution, my readers as witness: next year I will find a way to keep the cold and the shortness of the days from affecting the people around me. I can get through the winter, because I am aware of what's happening throughout the dark months, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel; but it upset me this year how much my cold, dark mood affected my interpersonal relationships. So my resolution for next winter is to raise my mood for the sake of the people I love.
So I am in a much better mood now, but I know the heat gets a lot less fun when summer really gets rolling. For a few reasons.
You remember that summer in St. Croix Falls and the naked days at Sunny V? Well, my house in Wilmington also isn't the most optimal as far as temperature goes. Lots of cracks and drafts. Poorly ventilated. Incredibly inefficient at holding or circulating any ideal temperature. (This also means that the weather has a pretty substantial impact on my utility bill. Now tell me the weather has no impact on our lives.) And, because of the cats, we keep all the doors closed in the house, which cuts off the air circulation even more. My room was already stifling this morning after 3 days of heat. I'm debating whether it would be worse to not be able to breathe when I'm sleeping because of the heat, or because my respiratory tract is full of cat hair. The answer still isn't clear.
And neither are my bronchioles.
Speaking of naked days, I have already realized that my professional wardrobe is not hot weather-optimized. I have about two dresses that are appropriate for work, and one of them is black and has 3/4 sleeves. The other one requires me to wear a sweater, and I wore that yesterday. I'm now stretching my remaining sundresses to their professional limit, by covering them up with sweaters and blazers, and wearing camis underneath them, and wearing flats to make it look like there is less leg sticking out the bottom. This is not sustainable. There is also the dilemma presented by air conditioning, and the fact that I will no doubt contract hypothermia at some point this summer, since there is a vent right under my desk and certain decision makers like to keep the office at least 30 degrees in the opposite direction from the outside temperature. SO, do I dress for the weather outside and freeze to death during the day? Or do I die of heat stroke on my way to and from work and then achieve some semblance of comfort while I work.
There is no end to heat-related dilemmas in my life.
Arguably the most serious of heat-related dilemmas was brought up at a neighborhood association meeting I attended the other night: crime. A few of our local legislators spoke at the meeting and warned us of the correlation between poverty and crime; and I know there is also a strong direct correlation between ice cream sales and crime -- sorry, heat and crime. So if poverty is rising, and the mercury is rising, then crime is likely to rise as well. I'm expecting this to affect me on some level, since I live in the city, just a block off the "bad part of town."
***
Now that I've graced all of your web browsers with some solid weather-related conversation topics, I'd better go soak up what is left of this lovely warm day. For my readers in climes not yet in the throes of spring/summer, I'll enjoy it for you ;)
Related conversations with a bad rap include: "How 'bout them Yankees?" which I will never be able to replace in my mind no matter how irrelevant it is in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Ohio, or any other place I've lived or -ites I've lived among. There will be no "How 'bout them Twins?" or "Go Packs!" or "Da Bears!" for me, no sirree. Not that any of these openers would really whip me into a verbal frenzy. I can't really carry a conversation about sports.
But I can talk about the weather for quite some time. When I was a hall receptionist back at St. Olaf, our collegiate habitat formed the basis for my conversations with most passersby: "Little cold?" "Is it nice out? I might go lay out in the Quad later."
Now, as a young adult (new adult?), it still provides fodder for conversation, even with people I see and talk to on a daily basis and people I have a deeper relationship with. And as it turns out, the weather is actually central to a lot of facets of my life as a young adult. Thus its rampant appearances in small talk, and its centrality in conversation in general. Observe.
***
For the past few days in Delaware we've had temperatures in the mid-80s. That's right. I remember last week leaving for work in 29-degree weather. To me this kind of weather turnaround is somewhat alarming, but according to my Maryland-native coworker this is normal in these parts.
When I ran those 4 miles on Saturday morning, it was probably around 40° when we started running and maybe had reached 50° by the end; yesterday, I did about 3.5 miles around the Newark Reservoir after work at 85° and I will tell you that I felt the difference. It worries me a little to think about the Spartan race in July... But as Jason constantly reminds me, "The mud will help!" I sure hope so! 5 miles in the heat of summer sounds pretty daunting right about now.
Meanwhile, while I'm stealing moments to slip out of my sweater at work, my friends and relatives in Minnesota are wading through several inches of snow. Typical. A friend of mine who now lives in D.C. posted on Facebook this morning: "My facebook feed is alternating pictures of snow in MN and cherry blossoms in DC. Glad I am on the warmer side of things." Hear, hear.
Still, I can't help wondering if these strange weather events have been happening throughout my lifetime or if they are happening more and more as I get older; and if it is the latter, I can't help but worry a little that climate change is happening a lot faster than they told me it would when I learned about it in science class back in fifth grade. I swear I remember having gorgeous spring days, weeks on end, in fact, in March, right in between winter and summer. Am I hallucinating? At this rate, I predict that by the time I have kids, hurricanes will be hitting the eastern seaboard, as far north as Nova Scotia, every fall; most of the U.S. won't get any snow until about March, when we will all get dumped on -- repeatedly; most waterfront towns (rivers and oceans, mostly, but potentially also lakes) will have been chased to higher ground; and Manhattan will be underwater. Not quite The Day After Tomorrow; maybe more like The Decade After This One. Or The Year After Next.
On a personal level, the greatest immediate effect of the sudden weather change is on my mood. I am much, much happier lately. I can attribute this state of mind to a few factors, but I know for a fact a lot of it has to do with the amount of sunshine I have seen in the past few weeks, and the amount of fresh air I breathe on our lunchtime walks at work. Seasonal affect disorder has been on my list of things to blog about for a few weeks now, and now that I feel more steady on my proverbial feet I would like to make a resolution, my readers as witness: next year I will find a way to keep the cold and the shortness of the days from affecting the people around me. I can get through the winter, because I am aware of what's happening throughout the dark months, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel; but it upset me this year how much my cold, dark mood affected my interpersonal relationships. So my resolution for next winter is to raise my mood for the sake of the people I love.
So I am in a much better mood now, but I know the heat gets a lot less fun when summer really gets rolling. For a few reasons.
You remember that summer in St. Croix Falls and the naked days at Sunny V? Well, my house in Wilmington also isn't the most optimal as far as temperature goes. Lots of cracks and drafts. Poorly ventilated. Incredibly inefficient at holding or circulating any ideal temperature. (This also means that the weather has a pretty substantial impact on my utility bill. Now tell me the weather has no impact on our lives.) And, because of the cats, we keep all the doors closed in the house, which cuts off the air circulation even more. My room was already stifling this morning after 3 days of heat. I'm debating whether it would be worse to not be able to breathe when I'm sleeping because of the heat, or because my respiratory tract is full of cat hair. The answer still isn't clear.
And neither are my bronchioles.
Speaking of naked days, I have already realized that my professional wardrobe is not hot weather-optimized. I have about two dresses that are appropriate for work, and one of them is black and has 3/4 sleeves. The other one requires me to wear a sweater, and I wore that yesterday. I'm now stretching my remaining sundresses to their professional limit, by covering them up with sweaters and blazers, and wearing camis underneath them, and wearing flats to make it look like there is less leg sticking out the bottom. This is not sustainable. There is also the dilemma presented by air conditioning, and the fact that I will no doubt contract hypothermia at some point this summer, since there is a vent right under my desk and certain decision makers like to keep the office at least 30 degrees in the opposite direction from the outside temperature. SO, do I dress for the weather outside and freeze to death during the day? Or do I die of heat stroke on my way to and from work and then achieve some semblance of comfort while I work.
There is no end to heat-related dilemmas in my life.
Arguably the most serious of heat-related dilemmas was brought up at a neighborhood association meeting I attended the other night: crime. A few of our local legislators spoke at the meeting and warned us of the correlation between poverty and crime; and I know there is also a strong direct correlation between ice cream sales and crime -- sorry, heat and crime. So if poverty is rising, and the mercury is rising, then crime is likely to rise as well. I'm expecting this to affect me on some level, since I live in the city, just a block off the "bad part of town."
***
Now that I've graced all of your web browsers with some solid weather-related conversation topics, I'd better go soak up what is left of this lovely warm day. For my readers in climes not yet in the throes of spring/summer, I'll enjoy it for you ;)
It makes sense that people talk about weather, especially as an opener to anytime, because it is the most relevant thing to EVERYBODY that everyone has in common, yet we all have different opinions about it. I love talking about weather, and I like that you brought up moods because sometimes weather is ALL we talk about. Actually, I have recently heard people responses (including my own) to the question "how are you?" to be "good, but this weather...," or "good except it's snowing," or the like. I went to the Matt and Kim concert last night and they must have opened up at least three or four songs by talking about how it's "similar to the snow" that we've been getting!
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