Tag: summer

Summer Struggles… Or Bellows On

I was supposed to go to the beach today. One would think that planning a beach day in early September would be a perfectly normal and festive way to mark the passing of the lazy days of the last gasps of summer. One would not live in Florida.

The weather report for today shows thunderstorms on the way to the beach. It shows thunderstorms early enough to limit my time at the beach to about 2 hours (by the way- it is about 100 miles to the beach I planned to visit.) It shows thunderstorms all the way home once the lightning shoos me off the beach. Weather.com mentions “torrential.” I decided this morning that, as much as I wanted to go, discretion is the better part of valor.

Instead of experiencing the vibrant, refreshing smell of salt and gentle, cool water lapping over my skin during my monthly retreat day, I am in my Florida room at home reading, praying, and writing. Instead of a lovely walk through the sand for exercise and contemplation, I will be walking my steps across my living room floor in the air conditioning. A retreat day is a retreat day, so I am not complaining. I am simply observing that summer in Florida is a long way from being done. There are no “lazy days of the last gasps of summer” in the foreseeable future. Florida is dramatic when it comes to summer. There is no lingering death scene. In fact, sometimes I wonder if there is any death at all- it feels interminable. If it is going to die, it will flare out in a spectacular spontaneous combustion. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take all of us with it.

Another remnant of the summer bellows outside my bedroom window each night I’ve said it before, and I will say it again- nature is noisy. The summer is mating season for alligators. Our house backs up onto a wetland conservation zone. It is common for me to struggle to fall asleep amidst the music of horny alligators looking for a hook-up. They say that a male alligator sounds like a motorcycle starting. With some imagination, I guess that is the case. I was thinking more of those annoying vuvuzela horns people blow at soccer games- if the person blowing the horn was the Jolly Green Giant. I guess that makes sense. Alligators are the reptile version of Green Giants. And I bet they pretty jolly or at least will be if some sexy alligator hottie comes calling in response to that obnoxious mating call.

I should note that vuvuzelas make noise that can exceed 120 decibels, significantly exceeding the threshold for permanent hearing loss. Many stadiums have banned their use for exactly that reason. Someone should tell the alligators.

I have a friend who insists that alligators cannot climb simply because she doesn’t want to entertain the possibility. They empirically CAN climb but she prefers to push that fact of nature out of her brain. It is far more comfortable to live in Florida if you don’t think too hard about the many ways an alligator could secure access to your living space. Alligators are not usually running around (and they can run!) trying to enter a human house or even garage, but they do not understand the concept of property lines. It is not uncommon to see them in yards or golf courses within subdivisions. People say that if you have a glass of water in Florida, there WILL be an alligator trying to get into it. If they stayed in the glass of water, we could all live in peace. However, they often go in search of other bodies of water… or in search of a frisky female.

When we first moved to Florida, I tried to adopt the attitude of denial that my friend employs to ignore the idea that some of my neighbors might have scales. In fact, I heard some suspiciously alligator-like noise but told myself it was some kind of bird or frog. Truthfully, a bird or a frog big enough to make the kind of noise I was hearing would be at least as frightening as an alligator. It would be a freak of nature. We had a worker out to close our soffits (to prevent squirrels from getting into our attic, not alligators- I am not that paranoid.)  He mentioned that he was hearing a bull alligator behind the house as he worked. I told him I thought it was a bullfrog. He looked at me like I was demented but did not debate with me. I had not paid him yet.

However, I have since seen an alligator in the backyard. During COVID, Max was looking out the window and said to me, “Is that an alligator?”  I defaulted to denial and said, “Oh no, it is just a tree root.”  Then the tree root moved. It was an alligator, and he was out for a little stroll. We watched as he ambled through eight or so backyards before heading back down into the wetlands. He was a big fella, too. We regularly see juvenile males who have been kicked out of a given body of water because the fully grown males are starting to see them as a threat. The Jolly Green Giant in the backyard was at least seven feet long. That was the day I faced up to the fact that not all my non-human neighbors are fuzzy and cute.

As long as the weather is too volatile to go to the beach…. As long as I am drinking the air I breathe…. As long as I still hear alligators trumpeting on reptile Tinder…. It is still summer. Make it stop, please!

Is it still unrelentingly summer where you are? How can you tell? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a cool day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

I’ve Been Mugged

The other day, I went to the bathroom. The weather was perfectly fine when I closed the door. At some point, the skies shook, the thunder bellowed angrily, and monolithic rain curtains lashed down on the roof of my house. By the time I finished in the bathroom, the skies had cleared, and, except for some wet patios, one would never know there had been a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions. This would suggest one of two possible explanations. Either there is something very wrong with my GI system or it is summer, and I live in Florida. Thankfully (I guess,) it is summer, and I live in Florida.

My least favorite season in Florida has arrived…. Summer- or, as I like to call it, Sweat Season. The heat, humidity, and heaviness of the atmosphere has reached the  unbearable stage for me. The calendar tells me that summer is just barely a week old and I am over it already. At this time of year, the mere act of drawing breath feels like an elite athlete’s workout.

I might need to order Gatorade by the case if I decide to actually change my clothes. It is so muggy and viscous, clothes stick to my skin in a most unappealing way. Peeling off bike shorts feels like peeling off skin. It is disgusting to undress, but it is even more disgusting to remain in the same clothes for more than six hours. When we do our early morning yardwork on Saturday mornings, I make my own mud. My friend Kathleen argues that sweating is good for you. I do not know if that is true. Drowning in my own bodily fluids sounds like a definite health hazard to me… to say nothing of my mental health.

Another difficulty with the summer here is the sheer impossibility of planning anything. Every statement of intent is followed closely by the fearful phrase “weather permitting.”  You see, during the summer, it can rain any and every day. It often does. People told us during our first summer that the key is not to pay too much attention to those 98% chance of rain predictions that span across the entirety of the weather.com 10-day forecasts. They tell you that it only rains for 10 or 15 minutes at 4:00pm. It’s easy, they tell newbies, to work around these little summer showers. Sometimes all that is true. Sometimes, Noah calls demanding his flood back. I have been caught driving when I have to pull over to the side of the road for half an hour, just waiting for the rain to decrease enough to allow me to see if I am indeed still on the road or if I veered off into a river.  One time, as I made my way from the grocery store to the car, my shoes got so wet, they dyed my feet blue. I looked like a smurf from the ankles down for weeks.

Then there are the hurricanes. I always wanted to live at the beach, but we wisely decided to move to the exact middle of the state, 90 minutes from a beach in any direction because we were concerned that the cardboard box we would be living in after the first hurricane season would not survive a second.  In the center of the state, we are honestly fairly safe- at least as far as Florida goes. In the ten summers we have been here, we have experienced three storms that caused some damage close to us. Three, of course, is plenty. We have been lucky that we have suffered only the most minor damage. The bigger issue is the hype that accompanies any hurricane that could potentially impact any area within the broadcast range of the local television stations. For days before and during, everyone from the Florida Keys to Jacksonville is treated to predictions of soggy Armageddon. While this is going on, I cling mightily to my logical brain which knows the odds that we will experience a hurricane disaster are slim. However, I am an extremely suggestible person and the panic that I push to the bottom of my gut never stays completely subdued in the face of constant warnings of catastrophe.

I honestly do not know what possessed anyone to settle Florida in the early days of New World exploration. A Spanish conquistador named Pedro Menedez de Aviles founded the city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, making it the oldest city in the United States. My question is why, in a world some 350 years before air conditioning, would Senor Menendez do Aviles have wanted to conquista it in the first place? There is only so much good a sea breeze can do.

You might wonder, with all this weather whining, why I live in Florida. Of course I researched weather patterns, and I even spent time in Florida during the summer. Of course, I knew that the summers are hot, muggy, and tempestuous. Knowing it and living it or not the same thing. Also, I love my life in Florida. I love my little house. I love my friends. I love the cost of living. I love my church. I love the scenery. I love the available activities. Summer sog is the cost of admission. That does not mean I have to like it.

I typically count summer in Florida as nineteen weeks- from the last week of May through the last week of September. Summer weather can and does extend beyond September, but even I cannot justify calling October “summer.” We are currently in week six. That leaves me with almost two-thirds of Sweat Season left to go for this year. Pray for me. And send popsicles!

How do you feel about summer? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Be cool!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Good Health Can Be Icky

Once again, it is not even summer yet and I am already whining about the weather. Last year, we had a rather mild summer season and a refreshingly chilly winter. I was fairly sure that felicitous set of circumstances was not going to last. It has not.

This summer promises to be icky, sticky, ugly, and muggly. Meteorologists warn us that the season will be even hotter than it is most years. Living in central Florida will be more uncomfortable than living in Satan’s sinus cavities. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts a hurricane season that will huff and puff and blow our houses down. It all promises to be depressive and oppressive this year.

Typically, Florida boasts about 149 months a year of summer, give or take 3.7 months. When I first investigated Florida weather when planning a trip to Disney World, I read that “hurricane season” was considered from June through September. When I actually moved to Florida, I learned that I had been misinformed. Summer runs from May 1st through November 15th. Hurricane season is June 1st through October 31st. This may seem like an exaggeration, but this alarming duration is quite possible in Florida.

I get Seasonal Affective Disorder in the summer, the way some people get depressed in the winter when they do not see the sun for months at a time. For me, it is the sheer weight of the air fraught with humidity, the temperatures consistent with the idea that the world has a fever, the thunderstorms that suggest World War I is still raging, and the complete inability to plan or rely on trips out of the house because of rain. It is not uncommon to have to postpone fun trips to even indoor locations because the rain decreases driving visibility to about the distance from the tip of my nose to the point of my chin. Driving in Florida thunderstorms is a little like playing Blind Man’s Bluff going fifty miles an hour. Not the smartest idea.

The worst thing for me, though, is the sweat. I live with a perpetual layer of sticky all over my body from May to November. They say horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, and ladies glow. This lady does not glow. Glowing does not involve hair matted down with an overapplication of the natural hair gel known as perspiration. Glowing does not involve the inability to cross the room without stopping for a hydration break. Glowing does not involve multiple applications of deodorant a day. The last I heard, people who glow are not testy, cranky, and exhausted. Given the content of that last sentence, I am sure you agree that I am certainly not glowing. What I am is testy, cranky, and exhausted.

My sweet friend Kathleen has a different take on the muggy, sticky perspiration. I must agree that Kathleen does glow. It might be an evolutionary accommodation. She grew up in Florida. She tells me that sweating is good for me. The sweating process removes toxins from the body and is a key to good health. It is like exfoliating on the inside. I am willing to take her word for it. I do not need an annual demonstration. Especially when that demonstration apparently does not take my mood into consideration. Sweating might be terrific for my body, but it clearly does nothing good for my mental health. And for the record, I never heard anyone make a New Year’s resolution to sweat more.

Maybe my summer weather rant is out of my system. Considering we have about another 148 months of summer, I doubt it. Yes, I know I am being over-dramatic. I know I will not really burst into flames or drowned in my own secretions. I am going to try not to complain any more. Instead, I praise and thank God for air conditioning.

Heavy, all-consuming, suffocated, lethargic, exhausted sigh……

Please send popsicles!

What is the weather like where you are? Do you look forward to sunny skies and days by the beach or do you count the days until you will next feel a cool breeze?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a cool day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Icky Sticky

Once more, I am proud of my restraint. I have waited until it is actually summer before posting my annual Florida horrible summer weather rant. Yes, it is indeed after June 21, and I am having a meltdown- emotional as well as physical. Is it possible for skin and internal organs to melt into a pool of goo when both the temperature and humidity factors exceed 90? I am not sure, but I do know that exposure to these conditions cannot be good.

I recently returned from an emergency trip to Pennsylvania. It was not a fun, easy trip. The circumstances that prompted that trip and another planned one are sad and hurtful. Still, when I returned to Florida, Max pointed out three things that I learned during that trip. One of those fundamental truths was that I made the right choice when we decided to move to Florida instead of Pennsylvania.  Our first thought was to move to Pennsylvania because we would be closer to family. Eventually, we changed our minds. There were two factors that weighed heavily in favor of Florida. For one, there is the whole “Disney in my DNA” thing. Pennsylvania is a long way from Orlando or Anaheim. The more practical thing, however, was the weather. I lived in California my entire adult life. In fact, we moved to California from New York before I really had any true awareness of weather. I decided that, since I had never had to learn to navigate ice and snow, my golden years were not the time to start. However, I did have cause to question my decision after a couple of weeks back home in the Land of Summer Despair.

Upon returning home, summer hit and hit hard in central Florida. After being outside for less than ten minutes, the sun feels like it could burn through my clothes, skin, and kidneys. I sometimes forget whether I have my sunglasses even on because the glare is so bright there is almost no difference between the clear glasses and the colored ones. My retinas are fried. In addition, the humidity climbs steadily throughout the day. When I first walk outside in the morning, it takes everything I have to proceed forward, as the blanket of humidity covers my nose and mouth. I breathe water, not air. However, God did not provide me with gills.  By evening, as the sun goes down (like at 8:00pm), the temperature gets slightly cooler, but the humidity gets worse. Thus, the “feels like” temperature at 8:00pm can be as high or higher as what weather.com reports at noon. My brain is programmed that the weather should be more comfortable in the evening.  I tell myself that all the time. However, it does not help to “should” all over myself. It does not get more comfortable in the evening.

In addition to this disturbing Florida habit of becoming even less comfortable as the day wanes, the evening brings another form of torture. Mosquitos. Most people know that mosquitos breed near standing water. Since the entire atmosphere is pretty much standing water by 5pm, it is hard to avoid these beasts. I seem to be a particular delicacy to the winged demons. If I am outside at night for even 10 minutes, it is likely I will come in with at least 20 mosquito bites. I like to think it is because I am so sweet. Unfortunately, I suspect it has more to do with the vast quantities of salt I secrete through the four-month sweatfest that the calendar calls summer in Florida.

People in some places joke about being able to fry an egg on the sidewalk on a hot summer day. I saw a meme yesterday that showed a tray of cookies baking on the dashboard of a car in Arizona. I think we could probably poach an egg by just leaving it outside in the humidity in Florida. And as for the climate cooking things like an oven, Florida’s climate is more like a crockpot. Instead of cooking our bodies to a crisp, light, sweet consistency, Florida stews our bodies in our own disgusting juices. And who eats crockpot meals in the summer, anyway? Beef stew and spaghetti sauce seem way too heavy to feed into my sluggish metabolism when the weather is this warm.   Come to think of it, even baked cookies seems a bit much. Ice cream, anyone?

What is your least favorite thing about summer? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com. 

Have a COOL day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Living In Satan’s Sinus Cavity

I believe I have shown remarkable restraint. It is nearly the end of July and I have not posted my annual summer weather whine. Since I live in a place where summer begins in May and does not conclude until November, I think I deserve some credit for avoiding a meltdown before now.

Time’s up, though.

I reside in Florida, which is pretty much like saying I live in Satan’s sinus cavity during the summer months. It is hot, moist, sticky, and slimy virtually all the time. The air is heavy with humidity. It is so thick with unshed rain and mosquitos; breathing is hazardous to one’s health. Of course, not breathing is even more hazardous, so we soldier on with the aid of life support- air conditioning. I know some people who do not  leave their artificially cooled compartments for months.

Thunder does not rumble; it crashes and pummels. Rain does not pool in my yard; it oceans. So far this summer, we  have been pretty lucky in that we have not yet had multiple consecutive days of catastrophic rainstorms. Often,  we will have thirty rainy days in a row… or more. One summer, I counted sixty-two consecutive rainy days. Even Noah and all those animals only had to cope with forty. People will say, “yes, it does rain every day, but it is only for half an hour in the early evening.” These people are purposely misleading you. To be fair, it does rain for only a brief time on some days. Most days, the rain is much more significant. Some days, I feel like I should not leave the house without a hairdryer… for my clothes and shoes. I will never forget the year I acquired smurf feet because I walked from the car to the grocery store in blue shoes.

Summer is also growing season, which sounds very nice and idyllic. However, growing season in my household simply means weed season. Any plant I try to grow intentionally tends to die in the summer, even if I have kept it alive for months, because the heat is so intense that the leaves incinerate spontaneously. The weeds, however, seem to have no such delicacy. Max and I pull weeds and trim the bushes early every Saturday morning. In the winter, this task means putting on a sweatshirt and leggings. It means about 10 to 15 minutes of easy work. There is little need to bend over or squat because almost all the weeds have succumbed to my weekly Round-up application. In the summer, it is already about a million degrees when we start work at 7:30. The force of the heat and humidity compresses my skeleton into my internal organs as soon as I walk out of the door. Even though I am faithfully applying the Round-up, the summer weeds propagate at such an alarming rate that our task takes easily twice as long than in the winter. I can barely stand outside for five minutes, much less bend to pick weeds, without dissolving into a puddle of gooey, humidity-seasoned sweat.

Satan’s sinus cavity feels infected in the summer. There is something like decay that fills the air. And, speaking of sinus cavities, mine does not do so well in the summer, either. Something about the air pressure or about the humidity or the weeds that grow with wild abandon triggers seasonal allergies I never knew I had until I moved to Florida. I have a near constant headache and raw respiratory system. I test myself for COVID way more than should be necessary, but I want to be sure I am not contributing to a worldwide pandemic. Every time I test, it turns out it is just my sinuses raging against the summer machine.

And, this year, I found a fresh new annoyance in the summer repertoire. Does anyone else get more achy during times of heat and humidity? I thought arthritis was supposed to get worse when it is cold. I am nearly 63 years old. My body is aware of this number. I have my fair share of tenderness and pain in my joints, ligaments, muscles, and menisci during the Days of Wine and Roses (November through April). This year, May welcomed in a whole new level of body aches. The discomfort has increased with the passing (way too slowly) days of summer. It feels like all of the bones around my joints are bound within a ring of calcified bone material that is gradually tightening. I do not want to overstate because I know many people suffer much more than I do from arthritis and other age-related health problems. I am, blessedly, pretty healthy. My point is simply that I did notice a significant uptick in my body’s resistance to age this summer.

When I researched this phenomenon online, I learned that there are studies that suggest that barometric pressure, humidity, and various other summer weather phenomenon do have a negative impact on arthritis. Other studies proclaim that there is no impact at all. These studies suggest that the summer, in and of itself, has no impact. The problem is that the uncomfortable conditions make the patient cranky, thereby reducing their tolerance to pain.

I will not argue with that. Cranky sounds about right.

So what’s the weather like where you are? What season do you find most difficult to endure and why? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have an unsticky day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

It’s Not The Heat; It’s The Humidity

Summer has different associations for everyone. Some people think of beaches, vacations, school being out, longer days, picnics, or the smell of fresh peaches.  I sometimes think it is my goal in life to change your core association with summer.  When you think “summer,” do you think “time for Terri’s annual whine about the Florida weather?” Yes? Then I’ve succeeded.

The other day, I saw a post on Facebook that said, “Lord, whatever you are baking out there- it’s done.”  It seemed highly appropriate.  The temperature zipped up to the mid-nineties this past week, with little fanfare or buildup. The term “baked” was spot on.  It was more of a California kind of a mid-nineties heat than a Florida heat.  The sun glared. It took little or no time to start to feel hot as Max and I tramped around an outdoor shopping mall.  Strangely, the weather seemed really bearable to me, though.  It was dry and quiet.  The sky was clear and clean.  It was easy enough to feel immediate relief from the heat. All we had to do was simply step out of the sun into the shade. 

The day is coming, any time now, when this will all change.  The sky will darken, the air will sog, and the moisture in the atmosphere will be impossible to escape.  At any given moment, the angry, painful-looking clouds that are obscuring the sky will crack open and furious rain will accompany the heat.  There will be thunder so loud you have to shout to be heard over it.  Chain lightning will be a daily occurrence.  People who try to make the best of things will tell you that the rain is really good because it brings the temperature down.  That may be accurate, but I’m not sure.  The temperature may go down, but the humidity is so heavy you can’t really tell.  In fact, it is sometimes difficult to know when a storm has passed because the rain is followed by steam.  The only clue that the storm may be over is that you no longer have to yell over the sound 0f rain brutally assaulting the roof.  

This past week’s heat has been dry and clean, like a towel fresh out of the dryer.  No one likes a towel fresh out of the dryer being stuffed over her nose and mouth, impeding the ability to breathe.  If the weather gets so hot that you can’t draw air without scorching your lungs, then that isn’t a good thing.  However, I think there is a pleasantness to having that warm towel close to my face.  It harkens back to childhood and safety and helps when I have a sinus headache.  On the other hand, a towel dipped in super-heated water stuffed, sopping wet, into my personal space, is not my idea of a good time. I think we are getting ready to take the towels out of the washer very soon now.  Breathing in dense, wet, terry cloth has absolutely nothing to recommend it.  Breathing the hot, humid summer air in Florida is pretty much like that. 

You see, its not the baking; it’s the boiling that is the problem with Florida summers!

Update:  I wrote this a couple of weeks ago.  Rest assured that, since then, we are out of the frying pan and into the crock pot.  God is making a big tasty batch of Florida soup and I fear it is going to be simmering nonstop until November.  Any suggestions on how to stay comfortable while slow-cooking in a pot of soggy atmosphere?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alterative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com. 

Hope you stay out of hot water today!

Terri/Dorry 😊

P.S. I seem to be a week ahead of myself.   When I posted last week’s piece, I was convinced that Fathers’ Day was on June 9th.  I learned I was wrong last Friday.  Therefore, I’d like to wish all you dads a happy Fathers’ Day NOW that the correct day is this coming Sunday.

And the Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down

Summer in the American southeast!   The snowbirds have gone home and I don’t have to arrive at church half an hour early to get a seat.  I don’t have to plan on eating dinner at 4:00pm in order to avoid waiting in a restaurant for several hours. 

 On the other hand, the summer weather has hit.  The temperature and the humidity are the same number on an almost daily basis.  And that number starts with a “9.”  As Max says, we live in God’s hot tub.  You don’t so much breathe the air as drink it.  They say ladies don’t sweat.  Horses sweat.  Men perspire.  Ladies glow.  If that is so, I believe I glow brightly enough to be seen from space. 

 We eat dinner to the dulcet tones of the weather alarm radio, squawking dire warnings at us about the damage that can be done by winds over 50 miles per hour.  I wondered if there would be lightning bugs in this area.  I haven’t seen any lightning bugs, but I have certainly seen lightning.  In fact, the thunder and lightning regularly convince me that someone finally invented the Way-Back Machine and we’ve landed in World War I France. 

 As someone who grew up in a place where we barely knew what rain was, it is interesting to live in a place where rain- in fact an abundance of rain- is just the way things are.  No one seems to have an ark in the driveway, but it certainly feels like one will be necessary at any time.  The thing about this state is that it CAN rain any time and, sometimes, it does. 

 Now that the summer is here, those “sometimes” are much more frequent.  We have a thunderstorm or two in our general vicinity almost every day.  They last from five minutes to an hour or so.  The other day, I went out to get my nails done.  As I left the nail shop, I got caught in a cloudburst.  In the time it took me to get to the car, I was so soaked that the dye from my blue suede shoes had steeped into my feet.  Not only did this deluge ruin my shoes, I looked like a smurf from the ankles down for the next two days.  I remember the first time I was out when I actually felt unsafe driving because of the weather.  I would have pulled over, except I couldn’t see anything in any direction.  I felt it was only slightly less likely I would run into something directly ahead of me than that I would run into something if I moved to the side.  When it isn’t actually raining, I often think of the weather as “oozing.”  The air can’t hold all the moisture and dampness seems to be literally seeping from the atmosphere. 

 Where I came from, people called in absent from work at the first sign of a raindrop.  Here, people do arduous outdoor work, soaked in rain and sweat.  If they stopped for weather, nothing would ever get done.  When there is lightning, the workers cover what they are doing, sit in their vehicles for a while, and are back at it immediately as soon as the sky is quiet again.  Supermarkets keep a supply of loaner umbrellas so people won’t get wet if a shower starts while they are in the store.  I believe the region’s economy would come to a standstill if rain stopped anyone from buying groceries at any time.

 When it rains, people don disposable ponchos and continue whatever recreational activity they are doing.  They consider it an imposition to get out of the pool or off a lake, despite the desperate warnings of that weather alarm radio screeching about lightning strikes.  Here are some famous potentially last words I heard at the pool earlier this week- “That isn’t really thunder.  It isn’t loud enough.”  I was listening to the news one day and the weather guy cautioned that there was going to be thunderstorms on the Fourth of July.  He went on to inform us that the rain might be over by fireworks time, so people should go ahead with their plans and just bring an umbrella.  Great…. A bunch of people sitting in a central Florida storm holding their own personal lightning rods. Fireworks might not be the only thing lighting up those displays.

 We are in “hurricane season” (not the most comforting of monikers, admittedly).  We live pretty far from any coast, so actual hurricanes are rather rare in our community.  However, whether you call it a hurricane, tropical storm, thunder warning, or just precipitation, it is more rain than I’ve seen in forever. 

 I have to admit the thunder is a bit unnerving.  It can actually rattle our very solid little house, even without a hurricane.  I remember parents telling frightened children that the thunder and lightning were “just the angels having a party up in heaven.” 

 I beg to differ.

 Those angels are pissed off. 

What do you think?  Is summer where you live a nightly light show?  Or do you have other impressions of the seasons?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  Have a great day.  Stay dry!

Terri 🙂