Weather the Weather

Yesterday afternoon, all at once, my son and I started to feel a little sluggish. For me, a little afternoon slump isn’t so surprising. But for a kid who’s usually climbing up doorjambs, ripping off pull-ups, or teaching himself how to do a corkscrew flip on the trampoline, it’s weird. But there we were in […]

Cloud Cover

I wrote this post a few years ago after being off the grid for a week and coming back to a bunch of messages about an emergency. I’m about to head out again, and I do always have that worry–what if something happens when I’m gone, and I’m not here to help? But reading this […]

June Gloom

Ok so we missed this by a month, we’re sorry but what is time anyway. Maybe in this flat hot relentless July, we could use a little June Gloom! (Or as reader Michael McKee has heard it called in the Pacific Northwest, Juneuary.) The gloom can be pretty glorious, making the beginning of summer one […]

Quick, Call This Number Right Now

Have you ever dialed a phone number to get the weather forecast? This is one of those questions and answers that dates you, like describing your favorite TV show in adolescence, or the brand of shoes that were extra cool in 10th grade.  Dialing a number: There’s the first anachronism in that example. I don’t […]

Strikeout

Late summer makes me think of thunderstorms, baseball and Steve. This post first appeared in 2014. Last weekend there was an unseasonable lightning storm on the coast. Not here (thank goodness, for our dog’s sake), but farther south. More than 1,400 strikes touched down across the region, with 13 people reporting injuries in Los Angeles […]

No-Sky July

Each June, I revisit a post about June Gloom, a weather phenomenon that turns much anticipated summer sunshine into foggy despair. You thought you were safe this year, but no! Our gloom was so deep it started in May and lasted all day, every day. Now it’s July, and there is light at the end […]

Cloud Cover

When I turned on my phone over the weekend after a blissful week without cell service, I got an increasingly alarming series of messages from friends at home. A fire broke out near where I’m dogsitting If I get evacuated can I bring the dogs I am going to text your mom I’m evacuating my […]