rain comin' on

So here we are.

It’s that time of day where light would normally be pouring in our windows, but the apartment is eerily dark. It’s one of those days where the sky is about to rip open with water pouring down in a seemingly endless supply. 

Tangent:  I can’t believe I am living in an age where the words “tornado” and “New York City” are being used with some degree of regularity in the last two weeks. 

Back to it.

I am fascinated by weather sometimes. Not that I have any sort of scientific bent. I am plain old stupid when it comes to science. Even watching Alton Brown explain the most basic scientific principles of baking makes my head hurt a little. Just get to the good eats, Alton. 

Tangent: I like Alton Brown. I really do. I actually secretly like that he tries to make learning fun by having people dress up as proteins and acids and bases. And I’m not totally stupid, just mostly stupid. I really do want to learn what he’s talking about, but I’m not sure if that part of my brain works anymore. Maybe my brain is too distracted by the yummy pretty tasty food for absorption to occur. I’d try to prove that theory, but again... stupid.

Back to it.

Even though I don’t always understand it, I marvel at weather and its effect on us simple humans. It’s the one thing that evolution, civilization, and technology have never been able to control or tame.

Tangent: It’s staggering to think that we’re only 5 years away from the world envisioned by “Back to the Future Part II,” with automatic weather control and flying cars and hover boards and no lawyers. No one seems to be trying to meet this imagined deadline except Nike, who I hear is trying to finally make that self-lacing sneaker a reality. 

Back to it.

No wonder our species found religion. Can you fathom what it was like for the very first humans to experience weather? Everything came down from the sky: sun, wind, rain, snow. Someone up there must be pulling some strings, they surely surmised. And then to think of the people who saw the first snows fall. How do you wrap a newly evolved brain around that?

Tangent: I grew up in Pittsburgh, where snow is a way of life. And when I went to college in Chicago, another snow-centric city, there were always people in the dorm who’d never seen snow before and freaked out when the first flakes fell. They always exhausted me. Yes, yes. It’s snow. Haven’t you seen it in the movies? It’s better in the movies. It’s not as cold and wet and dirty in the movies. You know why? Because a machine makes it. This is not the same as some caveman wondering what the hell tiny specks of crystallized water are doing falling from the sky. You know, before the word “snow” existed. (And probably before the word “crystallized.”)

Back to it.

It’s humbling to think that no matter how long we live and how smart we become, we will always be at the mercy of the weather and the whims of our planet. We can create flying machines, but it’s weather that grounds them more often than not. Nature is one bad Mother. Chiffon Margarine had it right when it warned us not to fool her. 

Tangent: Bedbugs. That’s all anyone can flipping talk about these days. And I think, well, holy crap, how the hell did that happen so fast? They were a joke in my childhood. “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” meant nothing to us, thanks to good ol’ DDT. But nothing comes for free, so here we are, torn between cancer and bedbugs. We keep trying to destroy Nature, but somehow it finds a way to fight back.

Back to it.

Do I have a point? Not really. But damn, when you sit, unemployed, in the dark and wait for the impeding storm, it invites a bit of musing. About all sorts of things. 

Tangent: Candy is... oh, never mind. 

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.