Behind the Ironic Column

Wow, breaking the heat records in Oregon this weekend.  A couple of days ago it was gray and drizzly and the high was in the low 60’s.  Yesterday and today it’s been above 90 and even slightly humid.  It feels like mid-May in Washington, D.C., where I used to live.  I’m having a great time.  Actually sitting in my apartment wearing shorts and a tshirt instead of fleece sweats with a wool sweater.  Folded up the flannel comforter I keep on the couch for tv watching.  Not going to need it this weekend. 

It is hot — probably much too hot to do any kind of actual work outside but I’m not obligated to do anything more strenuous than fetch cold drinks to the balcony — and water the plants.  The sheer pleasure of a warm evening isn’t one I get very often here and I’m not wasting any of it if I can help it.  There’s a breeze through the trees out in the Park Blocks and I can hear the leaves whispering over the bustle of traffic.  I could be going to an air conditioned movie, and I know several of my friends are, but I don’t want to go be cold somewhere.

I didn’t make it to the Friday morning birdwalk, because I had an appointment downtown about a new project, but I envy the folks who did go.  I went last week and needed my gloves…this week would have been perfect.  But I did spend most of Friday afternoon just puttering with the plants on my balcony — and most of this afternoon doing absolutely nothing besides lazing in the heat and occasionally reading a non-heavy-lifting book.  What we would call beach reading if I were at the beach instead of in town. 

I know it won’t last — which is what gets me out in it.  And sometimes even makes me delirious — why else would I go out in the sun without my extra sunscreen or the hat with the big brim.  I’ve been sunburned more times in the decade I’ve lived in Oregon that I ever was living in the South.  Living there, I knew there would be sun and heat.  You expected it, prepared for it, and you got it.  Here, I feel slightly obsessive about the sun.  When it’s out I want to go sit in it — not necessarily do anything, just sit there.  And I resent meetings or other obligations that want me to be indoors. 

So after all this time, I’ve become like the girls in my college classes who abandoned class at the first hint of a warm, sunny day and spread their towels around the quad, soaking up sun, getting a tan.  I never did that — never even contemplated wanting to do that.  And I’m not actually sunbathing now, I’m just hanging out in the sun.  I think there’s a difference — but I really should remember the sunscreen.

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