Frith O’Steen

I love being a Californian. Especially a Northern Californian. It’s an awesome place to live - the Bay Area is really diverse, there are so many cool things to see and do, and for the most part the weather can’t be beat. I didn’t realize until a conversation with my dad earlier this summer, that it’s not normal to go without rain during the summer! I mean, it’s normal for California and our Mediterranean climate, but not for a large part of the rest of the country. I always assumed (since this is what I grew up with) that summer meant that the rain goes away and everything stays dry until about October or November. Who knew that so many other folks in the US get rain and it’s not because of global warming? This was an “ah hah wow I feel really stupid” moment for me, much like when I realized in my SENIOR YEAR of highschool that the word “xing” at a crosswalk is shorthand for “crossing”. I always thought that the two white lines that you walk between across the street were called a xing. Yeah, I know. Yes, I still got into grad school!

Anyway - I love that the summers in California are usually fairly predictable, dry and warm so you can go outside and enjoy the great parks and have outdoor barbecues and all that. But boy, you can also always predict that at some point in the later summer, it’s gonna get HOT! And it’s hot right now. I’m no Al Roker, but my obsession with the weather comes from having a small little person in the house who sort of precludes us going outside right now. There’s no way I’m gonna drag him out in the heat if I don’t need to - he could wilt like a begonia! (Do begonias wilt? Well, some fragile plant!). So we hang out here in the a.c. (thank the heavens for whoever installed a.c. in our place! Our next door neighbor doesn’t have it!), and I periodically attempt to persuade Decker to go in the plastic kiddie pool on our patio with me. So far it’s a no go, so I end up with a cold wet tush and he ends up naked, slippery and out of sorts. Good times.

For my German-speaking peeps out there: Es ist sehr heiss! Schade, denn ich kann nicht zu Civic Park gehen mit mein Junge, Decker. Aber, wir werden CNN sehen, und vielleicht vielen Apfelsaft zusammen trinken. Tschuess!