The Summer of 2000 and Froze to Death

For an explanation of the title to this post, see my post from April 3: http://misterfweem.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-it-spring-yet.html

Blame global warming if you must.

Blame the dearth in the sunspot cycle if you must.

Blame El Nino. La Nina. CFCs. Retreating glaciers. Advancing glaciers. Wi-Fi signals. People who try to pass off margarine as butter, thus fooling Mother Nature. People who wear tinfoil hats. People who don't wear tinfoil hats. Blame Thatcher. Blame whoever you want, but agree on this: Our summer, so far, stinks.

We've seen the 50 mil per hour winds. The weeks of rain. Yesterday, briefly, we saw snow. What we haven't seen, outside of a small number of days I can count on one hand since the calendar hit March 22 -- the official beginning of spring, harbinger of summer, time to take off the winter parkas, pack them away and time to jam the snow shovel into the deepest recesses of the tool shed -- is actual good weather.

The joke is that for 2008, we're glad summer came on a weekend.

The squash we planted in the garden are dead. Not that I'm disappointed. So are the cabbages (a bigger loss; I like my homemade sauerkraut). The carrots may survive if they ever come up, and the tomatoes are only holding on because of the Fort Knox-like shelter I built for them.

Our kids keep saying, we'll go to the spray park when summer comes. When summer comes, we'll go on vacation. When summer this, when summer that. When will summer come, our daughter asked a few nights ago, as thunder rolled and lightning flashed outside. I had to say I didn't know.

(Insert self-effacing paragraph on how blessed we are as Americans, particularly Americans who aren't being flooded, melted, tornadoed or otherwise more poorly treated by Mother Nature here, followed by obligatory repentance for everything American has whined about while ignoring problems in developing nations, Tibet, Iraq/Afghanistan, Sudan, et cetera, et cetera, until we all get bonked on the head and forget where we're going. But at least Saint Obama won the nomination.)

I think I feel better now. No warmer, but better.