Waiting for.....Autumn.... Fall.....Whatever

It's now been 275.31416 5/9 days since rain last fell in Sacramento. That's an exaggeration, of course, but our long, dry summer--except for a few drops of precipitation one August morning--is running its usual course. It's the kind of weather that makes it hard for TV weather folks to think of new and entertaining ways to avoid saying "more of the same."

Before I came to Sacramento I had lived in Houston and Chicago. Houston, besides having hot, muggy summers, gave residents another treat in the winter--the blue norther. I could stand on the flight line, which offered an uninterrupted view to the horizon, and watch a line of clouds colored in blues and black roll in from the north and feel the temperature drop. And that night my buddies and I would drive into town and stand outside a convenience mart drinking beer and people would walk by and ask, "Aren't you cold?"

"Cold? I'm from New Jersey (Connecticut, Boston, Chicago). This ain't cold."

Chicago weather was another story. In a city that offered mile after mile of fine beaches on Lake Michigan and plenty of municipal swimming pools, there were summer heat waves and summer days too cold to warrant a swim.

And then there was a day in February 1951 when the temperature in Chicago dropped to 15 degrees below zero. That day stuck so sharply in my memory that I felt it necessary to verify it with National Weather Service online records.

Did that really happen? Yes. it did. And that was the last winter I lived in Chicago. And to be clear, I left not because of the weather but because some nut in Korea started a war and I enlisted in the air force before I could be drafted.


American River Parkway, October 18, 2020
Fall colors beginning to show.

The air force moved me around, and I eventually arrived in Sacramento early in May 1957. Six months later the air force transferred me again; other moves followed. Ah, but the military works in strange and wondrous ways, and in 1966 I was back in Sacramento, and am still here more than a half century later.

It's a benign climate. For much of the year you can plan a picnic on Monday for Saturday and know that you're going to have good weather. It's hard to say that about a lot of other places.

But it's boring.

By this time every year, I'm ready for rain and clouds; gimme some gloom. I want to need a jacket when I go out. I want to hear geese honking when they fly over the house. A few appear on the parkway, but they could be permanent party who see no reason to migrate anywhere.

As for fall colors--next month.

I'm waiting.

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The Grouch Speaks: Overwhelmed by Ennui

This morning, when I left the gym, I felt overwhelmed by ennui.  I don’t know why I was down, but I knew what would fix the problem, a cup of coffee.  As some ad or other says, “Caffeine—makes you do stupid things faster and with more energy.”

I went across the street to La Bou, got my coffee and a staple in my Kamikaze diabetic diet—a chocolate croissant—and sat where I could watch all three big-screen television monitors.  I wanted to see how bad things were in Houston, which was largely underwater because of hurricane Harvey.  A base just outside of Houston was one of my first assignments in the air force.  After more than three years there, I left with fond memories.  Now I'd like to know what was happening.

On one TV a woman wearing an Egyptian fright mask was talking about something or other, what I don’t know.  The sound was off as was the captioning.  Then the captioning came on and gave her name:  Kim.  Ah, yes, one of the famed Kardashians, the twenty-first century’s replacements for the Gabor sisters (Google them) of years gone by.

The station broke, and a more-or-less news program came on.  Three people were talking about a pay-per-view fight, the conduct of which soaked people for millions of dollars to watch late at night.  One of the panelists asked this question: “What late-night activity would keep you up?”

Be serious.  I was talking, silently, to the TV, asking, Do you guys think about the words you use before you throw them out over the air?  I know what late-night activity would keep me up, and it’s none of your business.

I pivoted to look at the monitor in the middle of the room.  A courtroom drama was on, but no, it wasn’t, a commercial came on for a local law firm.

At one time it was illegal for lawyers to advertise; now it’s not.  I don’t have a problem with that, but I think that when the law was changed it should have included a requirement that professional actors be used and lawyers not be allowed to pretend to act.  The lawyers representing themselves on the screen before were as wooden as Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd—dummies used by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

The TV monitor at the back of the room caught my eye.  People were doing something with a watermelon.  It was a food channel, or a cooking channel, something like that.  A man put a chunk of watermelon in a glass and then poured gin over it. Or vodka.  Or some phony booze.  It’s the concept that counts.  That appealed to me.

It was time for me to go.  I could check out Houston on the Google news feed at home, and what daytime television I'd seen still left me overwhelmed with ennui.

***