Weather Or Not?

Weather is an obsession in this coastal city of mine.

Weather conversations have moved well beyond the realm of polite banter topics to an all consuming passion that is discussed with everyone from your nearest and dearest to the bus driver to the barista that makes your favourite caffeinated beverage.

For the record, I do not indulge in this bellyaching hobby. I prefer to take the weather as it comes. It’s not like I’m X-Men’s Storm and I can change it.

This year, weather griping seems to be at an all-time high. Ask any of the amateur weather casters in this city and they will tell you that it has been the coldest, wettest summer on record. Ask any professional meteorologist and they will probably tell you that this isn’t so.

When I was still the Receptionist here I would have upwards of 25 different conversations with people about the weather. Every day. I had to smile and listen to a-hole things like “sure glad that summer decided to stop by today!” or “hope you enjoyed summer yesterday” or even “ju-vember is sure shaping up nicely”

Ha! You’re so funny. ‘Ju-vember’- because its July but it feels like November right? Hilarious!

Shut up.

You know what’s nice about not suffering through some ridiculous heat wave a la the east coast? Old people don’t die from heat exhaustion. Entire forests don’t burn, swallowing homes and business as they tear through whole communities leaving only devastation and heartbreak.

And on a personal note, I can sleep at night, cozy in my bed, wrapped up in blankets because I’m not sweating out of every pore in my body. I don’t need to sleep on a cold wet towel, or take a cold shower before I spend the night wide awake on my bed willing the fans to blow cold air around instead of just circulating the hot air. I also don’t need to spend precious moments talking The Boyfriend out of spending hard earned dollars on an air conditioning unit we would use for maybe 2 whole weeks in the year.

I’m not sure what good it does to obsess over the various weather forecasts in this city either. Turns out we live in a coastal rainforest which means the weather often changes faster than we can predict it. I feel bad for the meteorologists in this city – they so rarely get it right and people here…they just set so much stock by the weather. Oh my god, what do you mean they said it would be sunny today and now its cloudy? You had a picnic planned and everything?!

Move on. Get on board with my philosophy: Vancouver weathercasters can tell you what it did today and what it’s doing right now. That’s all (and it’s really not their fault, they are victims of their environment). Admittedly its annoying to have to carry around an umbrella, an extra sweater, and different weather shoes every day but while you’re bitching about the weather, stop and take a look at where you live and maybe the extra load will be worth it.