Monday, 7/8

You'd think by now I'd know enough not to be disappointed every time it happens.

You'd think.

I'm referring to the weather the past few days, and how it hasn't turned out any way near how it was supposed to. I don't know why—I'm sure it's a character flaw on my part—but I get bummed when what was supposed to be a nice sunny day turns out to be anything but a nice sunny day. I especially felt that way yesterday when what was supposed to be a perfectly nice summer day was gloomy and kind of chilly, thanks to haze in the sky blocking out the sun, courtesy of a forest fire in Canada. There have been other weekend days this summer when I felt the exact same way, and I''m sure there are still more of them on the horizon.

Good times.

Like I said, I know enough and have lived through enough to know that U.P. weather forecasts are not always the most reliable in the world. Heck, there's a reason meteorologists say this is one of the hardest places on the planet to forecast. And as anyone who's lived up here long enough knows, you should take any forecast with a grain of salt. But when a wind pattern shifts and all of a sudden blows fire smoke in from hundreds of miles away, and completely blots the sun out of the sky...

Well, that's not something that happens ever day.

Too many times to count yesterday I just stood looking out the window, wondering if the sun would ever make an appearance. It never did, despite the fact that the National Weather Service forecast didn't change for most of the day. It called for sun and warm. And while I'm sure some places in the UP may have escaped the smoke and got a little sun, we didn't. All we had was the gloom.

It was the waste of a summer day. And since we have so few of those to begin with; well, maybe you can see why I was a little disappointed. And really bummed.

Like I said, I should know better. I should know that even if we have a forecast for a perfect day, it may not be perfect, due to any number of circumstances. After all, that's why it's called a forecast, and not a certainty. And other times of the year, it really wouldn't bother me. But like I said, summer up here is fleeting; in a way, it's kind of ephemeral the way it darts in and out of our lives. And when a day that hold promise fails to live up to that promise...

Well, that's one fewer day when it can be perfect outside.

(jim@wmqt.com), who, sadly, has noticed that while the weather the next few (work) days should be nice, Wednesday calls for rain. You know Wednesday, right? The day I'm supposed to give my “...And Put Up A Parking Lot” tour for the History Center? We'll have to see...