Thursday, 15. March 2007, 19:53:23
no wonder everything's out of whack today - it's the Ides of March...
having been born on an ides myself, i had always fancied myself to be immune to Ides-related incidents, until today...
the weather is cooperating with those who regard this particular ides in a superstitious light, simply because it was upon this date that julius ceaser was assassinated... i've never counted myself amongst their number, but perhaps my immunity is simply wearing off...
in any event, after a high of 76° (farenheit, of course - i'm from the bloody colonies, where utter ignorance of all things metric is considered to be the highest form of patriotism) yesturday, and, failing to fall below a balmy 62° overnight, upon sunrise, became the second muggy day of the year... perhaps a note of explanation is needed here: muggy is the term we locals use to describe the dense humidity which descends upon the united states' east coast between the february thaw and all souls' day... the weather in the middle colonies appalled its earliest english settlers, and even forced the dutch to turn to enticing sweedes and fins to colonize
Nieuw Nederland, that grand penninsula between the hudson river, the delaware river, and the atlantic ocean, today known as new jersey...
now, humidity of the sort that is so dense you can smell, taste, and feel it, usually portends rain, and, obligingly, the weather reports i periodically heard this morning whilst listening to
NPR's "morning edition" on
WNYC predicted showers by the afternoon; turning into driving rain accompanied by thunder; which, in turn, with a rapid fall in temperature, will change over to sleet and, finally, 4 to 6 inches of snow by next sunrise...
and, so far, those predictions have prooved correct - all except the rain - but it is getting significantly colder here in the suburbs of
NYC - down to less than 50°, as the heat, which i keep below 50° when it's not actually freezing outside, has subtly kicked in, indicating that it might be far wiser to be closing my windows, rather than blogging... and it isn't just the weather; my laptop has displayed a distressing tendency to crash more often than normal - which, even on good days, occurs in abnormal abundance - and still, no rain...
i never used to mind the humidity of the east coast, until i incurred a wee bit of brain dammage that sparks cluster headaches whenever the barometric pressure plummets, and settles in for an extended stretch of hyper-humid weather, my arch-nemesis...
that's right, all of you who fancied
you were my nemesis - i have a life outside of
you...
in any event, beware the Ides of March - and january, february, april, may, june, july. august (my ides), september, october, november, and especially december...
Image 1: The track i left whilst taking out the trash during a january 2007 snowfall. (photo courtesty of DougS)
Image 2: Taken after my return from the curb, Doug swears that my cane trail resembles a double-helix.
