Today's Forecast: Hot and Buggy


Wherein Our Heroine Contemplates Forces of Nature.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

He bends to the order of the seasons, the weather, the soils and crops, as the sails of a ship bend to the wind. He represents continuous hard labor, year in, year out, and small gains. He is a slow person, timed to Nature, and not to city watches. He takes the pace of seasons, plants and chemistry. Nature never hurries: atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

Seasons in DC aren't the stately forces of nature described in poetry and literature. They nip in and out, play tag with one another, and spring out from behind a doorway to scare the bejeezus out of you with a loud "BOO!" One bright spring day it might be a nippy fifty degrees. The next day it will be eighty. All the while, the weather gods snicker behind their hands and delight in sweating out the unwary. "Did it again!" they chortle. "She's left the house wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt! Eighty degrees for her!"

Dear Readers might get the impression that I am not a fan of warm weather. They would be right. While some people revel in the hot, steamy summers DC is famous for, I go into vapor lock. Somehow, there just doesn't seem to be enough oxygen in the air when it is 95 degrees with 90% humidity. And the way DC dances in and out, doing the "hot to cold and back again" hokey pokey, I have a hard time acclimating to the heat in the springtime.

This week, the projected highs are 89 degrees. Yay.

But wait, there's more! This year, in addition to increasing heat and humidity, our DC weather will bring us noisy bugs. The "Brood X" seventeen-year cicada is due any day now. It should be really fun to sweat, crunch bug carcasses underfoot, and try to keep the dog from snapping up an indigestible buggy snack. John appears to be fascinated by the things, sending me articles and websites on a regular basis. He actually found two cicada nymphs in our back yard this weekend and brought them to me. They rolled around in his hand like fat, happy babies. Soon they will be oversexed adults, millions of them, each buzzing like a sawmill to attract a mate.

Kids nowdays. They grow up so fast.
Posted: Tuesday - May 11, 2004 at 08:31 AM         | |

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