start of the season musings

The first day of summer 2018

Today is the first day of summer and it also marked the abrupt end of the current heatwave, with temperatures in the high teens and cloudy skies, with even a few drops of precipitation in the morning. Yesterday it was around 30ºC and the older SkyTrain cars were like communal sweat boxes thanks to the lack of air conditioning.

So I’m not complaining, exactly. Yesterday was hot. Today I wore a jacket to work. I’d like some more sun, just not Africa Hot sun. The forecast through the end of the month is a crazy quilt of mainly sunny, light rain, cloudy, partly sunny and who knows what else. Meanwhile, the FIRE DANGER signs are in no, er, danger, of going up any time soon.

Again, not complaining. And as I type this the sun is trying to poke out from the clouds, so perhaps it’s time to step outside.

UPDATE: Later in the afternoon it became sunny, with a high of 22ºC or so. Not-a-complaint rescinded!

The spring list

Things to do, things to suffer through, things that just happen. This is spring.

  • warmer weather, yay
  • allergy season, boo
  • bees are back. As long as they are not killer bees, yay
  • still kind of rainy, boo
  • but now the sun feels warm again, yay
  • it’s still light after dinner, yay
  • still dark early in the morning, boo. But it’s early in the morning, so not a big boo.
  • next season is summer, yay
  • Easter weekend has two stat holidays, yay
  • Easter eggs, yay

On balance, spring is a pretty good season.

The first day of fall 2017: Not too shabby

The first day of fall was nicer than the last day of summer, with pleasant, mild conditions, some sun and all that stuff.

Because it was nice out and I suddenly did not feel like sitting around again for my lunch break, I went for a noon-hour walk for the first time since pulling the muscle in my upper left leg. The leg seems to have survived intact, even after I picked up to a more typical pace by the end (I walked a little over 4 km in total).

After work I hung out with a few guys from work and a former guy from work (that is, someone who formerly worked at Langara, not someone formerly a guy) at a pub on False Creek and it was quite nice by the water, though it got a bit chilly once the sun ducked behind a cloud.

I got home shortly after 7:30 p.m. and it was already dark. I was sad. It still seems bizarre that there are times in the past when I would start a run as late as 8 p.m. to beat the heat. I’d need night vision goggles for that right now. Plus I’d probably barf if I actually tried running in the dark wearing night vision goggles.

Anyway, I must come to grips with the change of season. It’s official now, there’s no going back unless time travel becomes a thing (but if it was a thing, wouldn’t I already have gone back? Wouldn’t I in fact be living in a perpetual summer, constantly skipping back to the warm days and long nights? Now I am sad again.)