Weather You Like It or Not

This is my new life, in a new place, weather you like it or not. I love the weather here in Monterey County: daily temperatures have hovered between 65 and 75 degrees just about every day. Brilliant sunshine, fresh ocean air, occasional fog in the mornings. We call that writer's weather. This is what my new neighborhood looks like.

Don't get me wrong, we LOVED our house in Haggin Oaks. We nicknamed the place "Melissa's Oasis," since my wife found her peace thereafter long days at the hospital. We hunkered down in our little slice of private bliss, shutting out the cares of the world...often cranking up the AC to the max. Full disclosure: I don't do well in hot weather. We moved to Bakersfield from Monterey County three and a half years ago. The hope was that your humble narrator, "the weather wimp," would get used to the finer aspects of 100 degree-plus weather. I don't know anyone who knows me that took that bet.

I'm a San Francisco kid, born in The City, raised in South San Francisco (aka "South City"). In this case, "south" doesn't imply warmer, it means "directly in the heaviest fog belt, down wind from Daly City, on the way to SFO." My formative years were spent cuddled in a cool blanket of fog. My mother had spent part of her childhood in Taft, part in the Ozarks of Missouri; she knew her heat, wet and dry. Since she liked her relations, I spent many hours melting into days in a variety of station wagons with four older siblings and no air conditioning, travelling to strange places with names like "Visalia," "Bakersfield" and "Joplin."

My father believed that tying a burlap bag full of water to our station wagon's grille would make those summer treks tolerable. It didn't. The only hope that keep us kids alive as we lurched toward the next motel pool were A&W Root Beer stands. I scoured  maps to determine the distance to the next orange-and-brown haven.  I knew every exit off of US 99 between Tracy and Bakersfield that led to the promise land of soothing, life-giving root beer floats.

In my twenties, I had a job that took me to New York City and a fateful rendezvous with a certain lovely redhead. We settled down in our nation's capital, where I got up close and personal with a demon called Humidity. I had one vendor there named Dan who would show up to my office with his polo shirt soaked in sweat, proclaiming "I love the heat, the hotter, the better!" At my house, it was a different story. The kids would come running inside for lunch and complain, "It's like a 'fridgerator in here, Dad!" I could always be counted on for the same reply, "Then you may go back outside, if you like."

When I moved from DC to Salinas in '97. I learned that the locals no longer call it " fog," it's "the marine layer" these days. Summer pool parties meant cranking the pool up to 85 degrees, entertaining guests between noon and three, before the marine layer rolled back in. Once you got out of the pool, the party moved indoors. Suited me just fine.

True heat waves are rare around these parts. One afternoon on a trip out of town, my cell phone rang. It was my college boy calling from home. "Hey Dad, it's probably the hottest day I've spent in California. I don't want to worry you, but I think our air conditioning is broken." After living in Monterey County for ten years, he had no idea that our only conditioner was known as "the Pacific."

This past week,  the thermometer has been inching upwards, the hottest days being Thursday and Friday. There were heat advisories on the news, just like in Bakersfield, with the usual admonitions about drinking lots of water, not letting the kids exercise outdoors too much, and please don't forget to take care of Fido, too.Temperature records were set--I believe the thermometer reached a scorching 88 degrees. Do I hear laughter down there in the San Joaquin Valley? Seems purdy hot up here, weather y'all like it or not. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.