We interrupt this rant…

… for a little nonpolitical nonsense.

It is raining in Seattle. In August. While we understand that those of you who live elsewhere believe that it rains all the time here, those of us who live here know that August is the month in which we are most likely to have no rain at all.

Some years, August is all the summer we get. (Just ask my mother, who, arriving here in July of 1999 with only short sleeves and Houston-weight linen in her suitcase, borrowed sweaters and jackets from me every day of the trip.) But this year, a year in which summer came early and brought more sun and heat than usual, it seems to be leaving early as well.

Have we run out of degree days (or some equivalent measure of sun and/or heat) for the year? I’ve been worried this might happen. I said to Paul earlier this summer that, the way this year was throwing the warmth around, I was afraid it would run out early, and then we’d be left with a miserably cold and rainy fall.

Or maybe, sometime during the complete craziness of the early part of this year, we just missed a month altogether, and it’s really September. This weather feels like September, and that would explain the whole “early summer” thing. And, frankly, I wouldn’t mind being one month closer to the end of this bloody year.

But if it’s September, then today’s my birthday. Where are the presents and flowers? Why hasn’t anyone called?

OK… we’re going to leave the odd meanderings of my mind at lunchtime. I now return you to Politics with Paul. Aren’t you glad?