When the weather changes.

I’m pretty sure I’ve touched on this subject on at least one occasion in the last 440 some odd posts,  so if I’m repeating myself,  well that’s just too bad.
Nothing to see here.   Move along.

Once upon a time,  I used to marvel at how my dear old Mom would make comments about the weather,  barometric pressure or what have you,  based on the “pain of day”.   Not to be in any way confused with “cease the day”  or anything like that.   I’m just talking about whatever it is that hurts on that particular day is all.  Every so often she would say, “Oh,  it must be going to rain.”  or some such thing,  since some part of her anatomical structure would be giving her some grief on that particular day,  and sure enough,  not too long after making that pronouncement,  it would rain.
As a young fellow,  being even stupider than I am now,  if that’s remotely possible,  I used to think she was a little bit loopy.  That’s a bit of a high falutin’ term by the way, which means I thought my Mom was a little bit of a nutter.

However…

I began to understand that particular skill/affliction after hitting the half century mark myself.  I’m actually scarily close to the half way mark into the first decade past the half century mark,  (got that?)  but I don’t want to get all maudlin or anything.
Our weather here in Wienerland has been somewhat cool over the last few days,  although we heard that it was bloody hot here on the Sunday when we were in Verona.  Personally,  I don’t mind the cool weather,  although I do know I’ve had some slight issues with a prolonged lack of sunshine,  but that usually happens in the dead of winter. 
Spending that year in Puerto Rico helped immensely.

Well,  something has changed.  I don’t have a barometer,  but I do know that the weather today is hugely different than it has been over the last week or so, and I know this because my hip tells me so.
Nothing else is different.  I didn’t fall down a flight of stairs.   I haven’t been crawling around under a bus.  I took my usual morning hike.  That is all.  I even wore proper shoes.   Some times I wear sandals,  and even then everything is still hunky dory.   Not today.  I’m pretty sure though that my poor ole Mom didn’t have the really nifty painkillers that we now have lying in wait in our pantry.  Sorry,  the pain may be the same,  but the times have changed.  I’m just not willing to go along for any sentimental reasons.

In spite of this minor annoyance,  I thought I’d better get out and work in the garden. 

Wait!  What?  You have a garden,  you say?   Well no,  but for some completely  unnatural reason,  we do have weeds that have decided to grow up between the flag stones on the Terrace.   Of course,   the presence of weeds,  is one of the reasons I’ve never had the desire to have a garden since about,  oh I don’t know,  1975?  See,  part of my summer job up until I got my driver’s licence was working with my dear ole Dad,  tending to his some five acres of gardens.  Gah!  Man did I do a lot of weeding!  And swat mosquitoes!   He grew way too much stuff for the people he worked for because well,  he could.  But that meant that muggins here had to tag along with him and help. 
Fun times!


In a way it’s kind of too bad I had to pull these guys out,  since it’s really and truly the only plant life we have going on up there.  We have a couple very nice orchids in our living room that we’ll have to give away when we move,  but other than that,  I’d just like to repeat the whole “not wanting a garden” thing.


You can also see by what’s going on over at the neighbours,  that they have a slightly different take on that whole “rooftop garden”  scene?  Actually,  there’s greenery every which way I turn.  Then there’s our patch of bare flag stones. 
Meh.  Whatever.
I suppose if this were going to be our final destination,  I’d be a little bit more enthusiastic and maybe have a potted shrub or something.   Not going to happen.

Speaking of the cool temps,  I can’t help but comment on something I saw in one of the local rags today.
First,  let me put this into context.  See,  when we were living in Puerto Rico,  for the most part it was HOT.  By that I mean,  “comfy hot”,  not “get a nosebleed hot”,  like it gets in Texas.   I didn’t realise just how friggin’ hot it gets in Texas,  until this one time I was sitting on a flight from Houston to San Juan,  and ended up sitting next to a guy from Puerto Rico,  who naively thought that had been living in a hot country.  That was,  as he said,  until he went to Texas,  where he did in fact get a nosebleed because it was so f**king hot!    So when a Puerto Rican tells you it’s hot in Texas.  You want to believe it!

We were lucky enough to have a pool.   It was fabulous.  Of course,  from time to time,  and sometimes most of the time,  I would tend to cool off in the pool.   You didn’t stay cool for long,  and for the most part,  there was really no need to suffer the inconvenience of any foolish articles of clothing such as a bathing suit.   Travelling Companion started to simply call me,  “Naked Man”.   It was a different story when we had guests of course,  but since she had pointed out that she could see through my trunks when they got wet anyway,  I figured there was no point in getting them wet.   (Before the first guests arrived,  I did have to go out and buy a version that was considerably less revealing.  Harrumph!)

So,  to me that is simply a way of getting acclimatised to one’s surroundings.  I’d certainly not peel off my clothes and wander headlong into a snow bank.  I might be a bit of a nutter,  but I’m not that loopy.
Cold:  Put clothes on.  
Hot:  Take ‘em off.
See?

Following that logic,  it stands to reason that I’m not about to dress up like a Ninja and then live in a hot country.  How does that make any sense?

Which brings us to this:

What the snippet of an article is telling us is,  these people come from the Middle East to Austria to enjoy the cool weather.  And here the Austrians have been whining that their summer was over!  Glad to see someone is happy I suppose.  But if you’re hot,  why put that burlap sack over your head? 
Don’t shoot the messenger here,  I’m just asking.

I see them out and about on Mariahilfer Straße from time to time, and I break out in a sweat just looking at them. 
I’d almost like to walk up to one of them, and in my best south Tennessee drawl ask,  “But darlin’, ain’t y’all mighty warm under thar?”
And yes,  I can do a convincing South Tennessee drawl.  If I could imitate the Germans well enough in 1979 for them to think I was from Alsace then yes,  I can certainly imitate just about any US accent,   and most of them south of the Mason-Dixon line are frightfully easy.

Where was I?

Right.

Having posed this conundrum about the burlap sack,  I’m not saying that I’m in any way in disagreement with the whole arrangement.  There’s a fellow who wears a turban selling newspapers and stuff a few blocks from here,  and I’ve seen his wife.  Oh my.
Their religion tells them that he cannot cut his hair.  It’s just too bad that it doesn’t also say that she should be wearing that sack on her head.   Who dropped the ball on that one??

I mean hey,  the sack over the head thing would go a long way in beautifying our streets.  That’s all I’m saying.

You want to do something for the environment? 

Here’s your sack.



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