As I’m writing this it’s a Friday morning, about 17 degrees Celsius with a forecast high of 20 and it might even rain if we’re lucky.
It doesn’t really sound that great for the middle of August for these parts but I can’t help but smile a little about the reprieve from the heat and hope it actually rains this time.
And if the truth be told, hey bring on autumn already, enough with the summer full of forest fires and water restrictions and campfire bans and anxiety as we watch the weather channel to see if any moisture is going to come our way in the next little while.
I know that sounds wrong here in the Okanagan where we’re all about summertime fun and the lakes and summer vacations and tourists and such, and if you haven’t had your holiday break yet then don’t worry the real forecast looks just dandy, but, hey, it’s getting tougher and tougher to enjoy those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer.
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer,
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,
Dust off the sun and the moon and sing a song of cheer,
…..You’ll wish that summer could always be here.
As they say, careful what you wish for.
Thanks to global warming, summer may soon always be here. And I don’t think in reality it’s what Mr. Cole had in mind all those years ago.
The Nat King Cole classic is a catchy ditty from simpler times when summer was indeed all about drive-ins and bikinis and roasting weenies and leaving the real world behind for a few precious hours, or days or weeks or months, depending on how much time you got off for summer vacation.
And there still is that element to it, thankfully, which we all do our best to enjoy but now it comes complete with smoke advisory warnings, UV ratings and even POP, which I always figured was just a modern-day meteorological copout on whether it was going to rain or not but in reality just raises more anxiety for folks with a declaration of a 40 per cent chance of a thunderstorm, which like the stats say, usually never materializes, at least where we live on the map, but still affects our general wellbeing anyway.
What do they say about too much of a good thing, both when it comes to good weather and information overload? Oh yeah, it becomes a bad thing.
I don’t know about you but it’s getting tougher and tougher to greet a beautiful sunny summer morning with the wonder and appreciation and gratitude that it deserves.
Although I still try.
But enough already.
Obviously familiarity does breed contempt (I’m bringing out all the old faithfuls here, folks) so I’m saying thanks summer, it was great to know you and it’s been a great time, but I see autumn on the horizon so you better be on your way and we’ll see you again next time when I’ll once again greet you with open arms.
Of course it doesn’t quite work that way (that other saying about “everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it” comes to mind), and I think that adds to our frustration because with modern technology we’re increasingly getting used to being in control and getting things our way, except when it comes to Mother Nature. In fact, so far, we just seem to be screwing things up when it comes to the weather.
But stay tuned. That is, to Mother Nature, not necessarily the weather channel.
Fall will come as it always does, and hopefully sooner rather than later, and before you know it we’ll be getting all wistful about those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.
