an interesting oregonian observation
folks here in portland don’t think it’s supposed to rain in the summer.
pretty much not at all.
i have learned since arriving here that summer is considered oregon’s best kept secret (oops!!), because everyone’s first reaction to the idea of living here is “but the rain!” and oregonians are just fine with encouraging that, because seriously, the summers are amazing – clear, dry, warm but not hot, berries so numerous as to be considered weeds, and rivers full of salmon and an ocean and mountains in which to play. not much more to ask for, really. it’s like california, but cheaper, and with fewer californians. and the californians are people like victor and sharon, and we like them. :)
the tradeoff (and the source of the weather stereotype) is that it rains all winter, but i prefer water that falls from the sky to water that just hangs in the air as humidity anyway, so that seems a better tradeoff so far than indiana summers, where it quite honestly feels as if air is something through which one must swim. also, the corollary of there being more rain than snow in the winter is that it doesn’t really get all that cold, which appeals to many. since i actually love the snow and embrace the cold as a good excuse to drink hot beverages and wear fuzzy clothes, i expect that if the rain annoys me it will not be because it will make the sky grey and the world wet, but because i will not be able to throw it at my friends or sled upon it. aforementioned mountains might help with that, though, so we’ll see.
in colorado, it rains every day in the summer. for five minutes. accompanied by booming thunder. and that is one of my favorite features of colorado. oregon is winning points with me for being less dry than colorado (yeah, i’m picky. colorado? too dry. indiana? too wet. oregon is like the baby bear of humidity.), as i appreciate things like moss and mushrooms and the ability to grow produce, but it loses points by not having thunderstorms. because that’s the other thing i didn’t know about the rain here. have i blogged this already? it rains a lot. but there are never thunderstorms. and this is very, very sad.
but anyway, yeah. in the summer? it’s not supposed to rain at all. i know this because it has been doing so this week a fair bit, and people are grumbly. you would think that rain would be such a part of life here that people don’t notice much, but apparently that is only because they know what they have to look forward to on the other side of the calendar, and it doesn’t take much to make them feel swindled. because it’s not even raining that much. drizzle, i would say. it is making our pre-burning man construction projects more difficult, but i have heard dismay from all of my local friends in all of their various undertakings, so it seems to be striking everyone as against the laws of nature.
which is an interesting reaction to the workings of nature, isn’t it?
;)
off to run rainy errands i go.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:23 am
We have friends here that justed moved from Oregon in the last year. They called summer the “stupid season.” Because it was so freakin pleasant that it make you stupid enough to hang around for all the rain.
It has been raining here a lot too, but I welcome it as I hate the midwest humidity as well. I miss CO…these night time thunderstorms still throw me off.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:05 pm
“it’s like california, but cheaper, and with fewer californians.”
I’m turning into one of those no-sense-of-humor politically correct people. This comment rankled my feathers.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:48 am
i am SO sick of the summer rain, BUT i have enjoyed the last couple of days of sunshine…aw…yes…its the best
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:33 pm
deb,
yeah i heard on the news today that madison’s flooding?
i hope all is well!
the “stupid season” is funny.
—
dr. p, are you sure you aren’t just becoming a californian?
;)
seriously, though, it is my belief that you are not turning into any such humorless robot. you are going through a phase wherein you are taking the relationship between structures of injustice and casual language usage very seriously, and i respect that. meanwhile, i’m going through a phase wherein i am trying to reduce the amount of energy that i put into worrying about offending people, because i think that i have spent too much of my life enabling low self-esteem that way, both in myself and others, and i want to stop.
i’m also kind of into the idea of playing devil’s advocate with the pc mindset because i think that it is dangerous to pretend that avoiding stereotypes is the goal. as someone who grew up in colorado and now finds herself in oregon, i have a great deal of experience with seeing and hearing the people around me make fun of californians as a way of coping with rapid growth and questions of local identity. as with all coping strategies, there is a potential for abuse, but there is also a healthy purpose. as someone who has a mother and uncle who have both lived and found love in the bay area, has considered going to school in the state on two separate occasions (and may well do so again), and now has a large percentage of her favorite people in the world (present company among them) there to tempt me into frequent visitation, i don’t think i can really malign californians with much credibility.
the jokes are like an old habit. thrown into the mix like the linguistic equivalent of a wink, perhaps. i joke about being hippie-esque, about growing up unitarian, and about my skepticism of the affected superiority of our nation’s coasts. these are some of the ways i decorate the lines that we all draw in order to demarcate “me” from “the rest of the world.” joking is often the easiest way to start talking about something, and once we’re talking we can actually get to know one another.
does all that mean i don’t think i should be mindful of the power of language?
not in the slightest.
so please, continue to push when you feel it is called for, and i’ll push right back. you’re always a pleasure to dance with.
and write an OHEP essay for topic #2 this month, pretty please.
:)
—
lauren, glad to see you here! i might miss happy hour tomorrow because of burning man craziness, but i shall return. we should pick a weekend for camping in september and just go.