Category Archives: weather

heat, news, non-factual, weather

Hot, Hot, and More Hot …

9 Comments

… and I’m not talking about the sauce on my burrito either.

The entire month of July has been running hot with highs above 100 for most of the last few weeks. Normally, the highs at this time of year are in the upper 80s, so you might say that the temperature has been running 12-16 degrees above historical norms for the past month. Couple that with unheard of amounts of rain and it has not only been hot but humid with occasional floods here in the semi-desert.

L and I were talking about it tonight at supper as we contemplated next month. August is usually the scorcher around here, with occasional highs in the 116 to 119 range. If August runs 10 degrees above the historical norms, it could be a bit too toasty for my taste. Not only that, but that will be the time of the county fair and marching parade. Nothing says semi-desert like marching a few miles in 100 degree heat while carrying a tuba on your shoulder. One year L and I led a precision marching keyboard and kazoo team in the parade – and boy were we glad to reach the end of the route. I can’t imagine doing it in even hotter weather.

The extreme temperature variations, unusual rainfall, and severe wind all bring to mind the idiocy of those who espouse the no climate change line. Sort of like this editorial cartoon concerning everyone’s favorite and least factual news station:

Of course, one always has to keep in mind that all news media are a bit slow on the mental uptake, especially around any sort of a rating period. In these days of Jerry Springeresque news coverage it is no wonder that many people forgo the mass media in favor of the bits and pieces they can glean from the internet. Nothing brings it home like the “local color” segments.

Time for me to head back to waiting for it to cool off a bit. What’s the weather doing in your neck of the woods (or desert as it may be)?

rain, weather

Rain, Rain, Go Away …

5 Comments

… come again another day.

We have had rain nearly every day for the last week. More than 3 inches in the last two days alone. Given how little rain we normally get, this seems like a flood of biblical proportions.

Coupled with the rain has been lightning and thunder and wind – so Molly the wonder dog has been Molly the shaking dog hiding on my feet. It’s funny but Molly will hang with L as her best buddy until the thunder starts and then it is time to find me. She seems to think that I will save her. {*grin*}

The worst part about the rain is that it is keeping the area dry land wheat farmers from harvesting. Every day while it is too wet and muddy to harvest is yet another chance for hail and wind to destroy the crop. Not a good thing.

The answer to the falsehood in the list of woes and happenings from last time was the boredom of Netflix being down. Everything else was true.

(Does anyone else feel that the new beta blogger tool leaves a lot to be desired? I know that I do.)

blogger, garden, weather

I’m Back …

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Or at least trying to be.

Blogger has made it darn hard to get back. Somehow they broke their interface when using Chrome and LastPass. The little light bulb above my pointy head finally turned on and I fired up another browser to login and do this post. It doesn’t seem to have been a good month for Blogger. This has been the worst period for outages and odd errors since I started writing this blog. I sure hope it is not a harbinger of the future!

So just to get everyone up to date, this has been a month of getting some gardening stuff done (and the onions all planted) and the arrival of spring weather. Out here in the semi-desert the coming of spring means thunderstorms and sometimes even rain. This month has been a wet one compared to most years – one of the continuing changes due to climate change. The winters have been geting dryer and the springs wetter and more stormy. So now we are waiting for it to dry out enought to get the rest of the garden planted. And of course once it is planted, that will be the last moisture we will see for the rest of the growing season. {*grin*}

Time to get back to work preparing for an upcoming Humane Society event. Now that I have a way around the Blogger idiosyncrasies, I hope to post regularly again.

I’ll leave you with one of the better editorial comments on the recent Blogger shenanigans from The Odd Blog:

Caption: Ann Althouse, relaxing at an undisclosed location following the attempt on her life by Blogger.

son, stamina, weather

How To Tell …

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How to tell that you are still young.

First, the conversation between L and the Son on the morning after his 21st birthday party as reported to me:

Son: What time did I get back last night?
L: I don’t know – I didn’t hear you.
Son: Then do you know how I got home?
L: No.

Now the part that tells you that you are 21 years young. After a night like that, the Son was out and skiing black diamond runs by noon. Only when you are young do you recover that fast.

I was proud of the Son and his friends. He scheduled some days off around his birthday so he could enjoy time with his friends. They were smart and chose to walk/bus on the bar crawl so that they weren’t driving. Let’s hear it for responsible young adults!

In other signs of 21 year old stamina much closer to home, take a gander at what it is doing outside right now after days in the 80s last week:

Let’s hear it for April snows that bring May flowers! (And for Old Man Winter who still believes he is a frisky 21 year old. {*grin*})

language, weather

The Right Words

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Do you ever struggle to find the right words to convey what you mean without it sounding wrong? I do and it can be so frustrating. It is amazing how many phrases can be technically and linguistically correct but sound completely wrong when used in conversation. I find it especially hard to give someone directions to perform a set of tasks without sounding either pedantic or like a control freak.

I am the type of person that might utter a phrase like “‘Preparation H’ sounds like a tax form, but is really a medical ointment. Either way, it’s a pain in the ass.” I truly appreciate the word play and double meanings implicit in such a phrase. I am also prone to misinterpretation of intent – primarily because of my deep seated sarcastic nature. Thus if I tell L that I “love her legs,” it is likely to be interpreted as a criticism rather that the loving compliment intended. So I have to work hard and curtail a lot of my normal volubility or else convince Molly to let me share her doggy space with her.

I often wonder if languages other than English suffer from this problem. Is the problem due to the polyglot nature of the English language, allowing shadings of meaning well beyond the strict intent? Do languages like German with a stricter organization and tighter constraints on structure have the same problem? Is sarcasm different or harder to misinterpret in other languages? Inquiring minds want to know.

Now with that out of the way, back to reality. Remember that it was in the 80s on Saturday and then snowed on Sunday? Well today it was warm and windy, so of course there were wild fires in the area being pushed along by the wind. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings. {*grin*}

Well, off to get some more real work done.