Thursday, January 30, 2014

Well At Least It Was Something

With tonight's book club looming, over the last week or so my free time was consumed with trying to get through this crazy 500 page book.  A Trip to the Stars was so much fun to read...I foresee a post about it in the future...however I'm glad it's finished, and I can stop worrying about getting it finished.  And instead I can go back to worrying about the weather, climate change actually.  I predict that about 20% of my posts in the summer time complain about mention the weather.    This time of the year it's a non-issue since it's winter and I like winter.  Unfortunately this year we haven't actually had winter.  Since December 20, it has felt like June instead.  While our averages in January are in the 60s for a high and 40s for a low.  Yesterday it was 85!  Other than maybe a random day or two in the 60s, we have been averaging 75-80 this winter.  Sure, sometimes we have this fluke warmer weather a day or two each year, but this has been eery.  While the rest of the country is closing down schools due to the the cold and snow, California has had virtually no snow in a month - a month we heavily rely on for snowpack to survive the rest of the year water wise.  Instead we are officially in a drought situation, and our spring flowers are already in full bloom.  Scientists say that we've had a high pressure "ridge" just sitting along the coast which has been blocking any winter weather systems from coming our way.  They haven't pinpointed the cause but do think it's linked to climate change and there is worry that the longer it stays there, the less chance there is of it disappearing.  Yikes!  That's frightening.

Well, maybe we got lucky and the high pressure ridge has moved on because today we got some rain!  Granted it was mostly spit and drizzle, but at this point we'll take it, along with the cooler temps that came along too.  There isn't anymore rain noted in the 10-day, but dropping temps seem to be in our future.  

The worst part about this non-winter is that I barely survive the boiling hot summer and really the only thing that keeps me sane is the air conditioner looking forward to our nice, calm but cool winter.  If California cancels winter, I may have to find somewhere else to live...I can't do summer all year long.

14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It looks like we'll have a cooler day today, but I'm ready when you are. :)

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  2. Sorry, headless chicken here. Running hither and yon looking for last min things I know are in the house but cannot find them for love or money. WHERE ARE THE HOOKS. I cannot place them until I know the tilt of the hang. But anyway where are they.
    I'll end up getting new, and find the other things next week.
    Hugs, and chin up. Vince. I'll write later today when things calm.

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  3. Oh, of course that is what will happen. Keep the receipt then you can return them. :) Good luck with getting it all done.

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  4. As promised, if a tad late.

    I am sitting here at 7:45AM listening to wind whip the Virginia creeper and drive rain against the windows hard enough that it sounds like someone tossing fistfuls of small pebbles. These are the conditions we've had for the last two months, since late November. Now I may sound a whiner but nothing could be further from the truth. I've been up the mountain in rain so heavy it went through my new waxed coat. Then, and now I was whining, bitching to my mother about the half-arsed quality of the clothing on the internet and deciding that there really is such a thing as 'internet quality' lets call it Orinoco Standard for short. Well she had a can of wax proofing which I put on the coat. The following Sunday was if anything raining and blowing heavier which laughed outright at my efforts at re-proofing the garment. It is truly hard when you know you'd be less wet 'not' wearing a coat.
    I have some friends in South Africa who are now in Summer. They are stepping out in their finery to race meetings http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26008101 . I view such photographs with something akin to an emigrant remembering home, and that's how I read your essay. I had no jealousy, nope. I was glad to be reminded what it was like to bitch about sunshine in the vein of a Gauguin unmediated by smearing water. :-p

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    1. The grass is always greener isn't it...although in your case it literarlly is. :) I know, it sounds like bitching, especially since most people have been enjoying the warm weather. If it were just about the heat it would be (and I'd have to just keep my mouth shut), but things are really bad right now so the lack of winter weather isn't helping. Have you seen these...
      http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow?articleId=USRTX17OP0#a=1
      It's the worst drought on record and now that it's been declared a drought it's turning political which is making it even worse. And while the temps have dropped some, not even in an inch of rain is in sight. Forget the wax, your jacket would be as dry as the bottom of one of our resovoirs if you lived here...heck you wouldn't even need a jacket.
      I had to do a little looking around about that horserace. It looks a cross between fashion show, horserace, and carnival...an event you go to to be SEEN I would imagine. The weather looks great! ;)

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    2. Ohhhh, I don't think 'you' are bitchin. I'm talking about myself. I know in summer I'd be be-moaning the heat and the sun. In fact this entire country grumbles and grouse's like a spoilt little child once the glass goes over 22*C and begins to melt over 26*C. And I do understand just how debilitating such 'good' weather can be.

      Yep, that's what most race meeting are about here, the UK and France too. You get a lot of women in clothes designed to expose their undercarriage while seated at a nightclub stepping out on grass in high heels. There's prizes you see for the best dresses which is understood to mean the most skanky. Perks a fella right up so it does !. :-D

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    3. The Kentucky Derby is proabably along those same lines as more of an event that happens to have a horse race. I think the tracks in town here make a bigger deal over the season's opening day - is that what a "race meeting" is?

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    4. Which now? season open day ?. We do and don't have seasons like you. We have flat and jump(national hunt), where the flat is mostly in the summer and the jump mostly in the winter. There are a few big days or even weeks throughout the year. Cheltenham for the jumps and Ascot for the flat are the biggest. More or less, each race they have in England, a Derby for instance, there is an Irish version where for the most part much the same runners run.
      There is another term for a race meet which is older. Point-to-point or Steeplechase. This refers back to when we Irish weren't so benign and would perform mayhem upon nasty colonists. Then a colonist would send out the alarm by racing from one settlement to the other, four/five in all calling that community to arms. The Point being the point of the steeple inside which would be a Watchman. You've seen them with little windows high up. pretty much all of them have them.

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    5. Yah, I was curious what a race meeting was. Other than the big racing events like the Kentucky Derby or Belmont, the racing here is a series of individual races. On any given day during the season you can spend the day at the track and see several. I would imagine the long distance steeplechase is not happening multiple times a day. What about the flat? I was just wondering if every race was called a race meeting or just the big events...or are they all just big events?
      Huh, what an interesting bit of history. I always thought it evolved from the fox hunt or something similar.

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    6. A meeting or Meet is any race day. And a Meet is the term for a fox hunt too, actually the bit before the actual running after the fox. At one point not very long ago those at a race meet and a fox hunt would be the same. And the Master of Foxhounds would be the district magistrate, perhaps a mid level landlord and the main official at the horse race. And the red-coated colonel of the local militia regiment.
      But one of the main reasons why banning foxhunting in the UK was so easily achieved is the persons involved were and are those with their hands on the levers of power. Note, the huntsmen wear Redcoats even now, in Ireland. That's something that really sticks in my craw. :-)

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    7. You've mentioned that about the red coat previously. I've had trouble finding anything to read further on the significance of the colors. Everything I've found is more about WHAT traditional foxhunters wear, not why. I hadn't realized it was banned to an extent in England.

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    8. The colours aren't banned. You can don anything you like. What's banned is the hunting with dogs, of anything.
      What they do now in the UK is drag hunting where a scent bag is pulled behind a horse or 4x4 up hill and down dale through woods and rivers trying to mimic the run of a fox or deer.
      Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeomanry

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    9. Yes I'm sorry, I switched topics mid thought. :) While I am curious about the colors, I also hadn't realized fox hunting had been partially banned, for a few years now, in England. I've often read or heard about people traveling your direction to experience a fox hunt and I've assumed England would be the place...however now that I think about it those going in more recent years have traveled to Ireland for them. But maybe they did go to the uk and chased a stinky bag instead.
      I will check out the link when my mushy 2nd grade brain wears off and I can think again.

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