I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about the weather in California, or lack thereof as it were.  It’s not really a secret that the first snow of the season is somewhat of an event for me.  As we get towards the end of October and I’ve not once thought about even wearing a sweater, it’s starting to hit home that there will be no first snow for me this year.  Oh sure, I will go home to Minnesota for the holidays and there will be snow on the ground or I could drive to Tahoe, but that’s not the same.  The first snow comes with a smell in the air the day before that puts me in a mood to bake cookies and drink cocoa.  It’s how I mark the passage of another year.  (It is probably not a coincidence that it tends to happen shortly in advance of my birthday.)

But this year…

This weather thing has already screwed me up a few times.  I nearly forgot to plan my trip home for the fair and other Minnesota summer things because it never stopped feeling like spring in San Francisco.  Baseball season is ending in a week, and I am not prepared because I see no leaves turning colors.  My roommate reminded me about Halloween and I realized that I haven’t even thought about it once… partly because we were talking about it while swimming in an outdoor pool.  Last weekend, I caught the intro to the local news and the weather promo was “Later we’ll tell you about how the temperature might change by as much as five to ten degrees next week.”  And that was said without irony.

Harvey once told me that he didn’t understand why people from Minnesota complained about the lack of weather.  His metaphor was something akin to why a person would ever want to eat a glass sandwich when they could eat steak all the time.  Well, Harvey, if all you ever eat is steak, it gets boring.  I need my seasons to remind me that life isn’t permanently on pause.