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In The Desert, You Can't Remember Your Name
Thanks to a little wintertime weather phenomenon colloquially known around these parts as The Pineapple Express, our daytime temps shot up today, hitting a record-breaking 60 degrees F. Keep in mind, just a couple of days ago, our daytime highs were in the upper 30's, so in the space of about 48 hours, we've seen our temperatures increase by more than 20 degrees.
Talk about livin' in the banana belt.
The downside is that this weather pattern also drags along a huge amount of moisture from the warm, tropical systems out in the central Pacific, and dumps it all on us here in a relatively short span -- it's not unusual to get 2 - 3 inches in a 24 hour period (we broke the precip record for the date yesterday with 2.39"), which means although it may be blissfully warm, it's also almost unbearably wet. Not just our typical soggy, drizzly PNW wet; we're talking incessant, soak you to the skin, make you think about gathering the animals two-by-two levels of precip.
My friend Sarah who's from Hawaii occasionally talks about the joy of being able to go swimming during summer rainstorms there, when the water is 70 degrees, the air temp is in the 80's, and it feels like you're taking a warm shower out-of-doors. Well, at this time of year, in these parts wet is just plain miserable regardless of how warm it feels.
Even so, it didn't stop me from getting out for a couple of hours this afternoon. What with being ill and all the projects on my plate for the past couple of weeks, I haven't spent much time outside, and this seems to have been an instance where cabin fever overwhelmed any inherent reluctance to venture into the inclemency.
And it wasn't all that bad. My leather jacket eventually turned the color of a wet paper sack, and my wool felt hat must have quadrupled in weight from the absorbed moisture, but in general I stayed reasonably comfy for the two plus hours of wandering around the neighborhood. Most people of course, were scurrying beneath umbrellas or with downturned heads, as if they somehow felt a bit guilty being caught out sans the proper gear. A few hardy souls seemed completely unfazed -- so long as the rain wasn't completely damping down their several pounds of hair gel or causing their racoon-heavy eyeliner to smear, they seemed perfectly content to saunter up Broadway, exuding attitude like it was some sort of psychic water-repellent, treating the weather just like any other "norm" trying to cramp their style.
I will say, however, that I was quite glad to get back to the warm snuggary of my little below ground-level abode, where within a few minutes, I was drying out with a big bowl squash, carrot and ginger soup. Nothing like a little homemade creamy goodness to take the edge off the clinging dampness.
Posted byCOMTE
on 7:45 PM
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