Weird weather
It was freakishly warm all day yesterday, up to near 70 in the afternoon, which, in Philadelphia in January, just seems wrong. I could feel the rational part of my brain, the part that says "Something is seriously out of whack with our climate, even if we can blame this particular winter on El Niño," conflicting with my lizard-brain, which was saying "Spring’s here! Happy! Go outside now!" (I could also feel a kind of subliminal confusion at the combination of warm springlike weather and early darkness.) I wandered down to Rittenhouse Square, which was full of people in flip-flops and short-sleeved shirts, and ate some gelato; the line at Capogiro was out the door the first time I walked by. Then I came home and made a salad with cucumber and sliced strawberries, the kind of thing I don’t usually crave except in spring. My next-door neighbors, from the sound of it, were throwing a party.
I wonder: if warm sunny weather makes everyone as cheerful as it makes me, maybe this is why we seem to have such a hard time with the idea of global warming. Maybe we’re too busy heeding the instincts that tell us warm weather is great, which we’ve had millennia to develop before we heated up the planet.
I’m trying not to get all apocalyptic-minded, but when it gets to 70 degrees at the beginning of January, something’s wrong. Even when it’s a relief to wear short sleeves in January. (Wolfa has been thinking along the same lines.)
I myself HATE warm weather in January. I like it at the right time, but it is definitely apocalyptic, as you said.
It’s too mild for January here in Scotland too. I stood outside my door yesterday and noticed that lots of birds were singing, as if caught up in spring fever. Hmmnnnn…..
It’s been nice. But it’s cold enough for me today. I hate coats. I’ll blithely ignore the apocalypticity.
Hey, let’s meet before your semester gets too rocky. I need to keep January happy.