Weather Wimpier · 5 November 2016
I do not know when it happened, but I have become a weather wimp.
If you are ever out on a sunny but crisp day and see somebody bundled up while everybody around him has got on a tank top or less, you might live in the Pacific Northwest. It is a common sight around here. “Sun’s out, gun’s out” is not just for the tropics or California. It seems that around here, everybody (except the visitor) has shorts and tank tops or no tops when the sun comes out. Even when it is freezing outside. Locals would laugh at the visitor bundled up on a sunny day. “Let the almost forgotten sun warm you up,” is like a mantra in the not quite frozen Northwest.
I used to think that way too. Shorts and a t-shirts were always the garb whenever the sun came out in the Northwest. Maybe a windbreaker or sweater if it was a little chilly. But always shorts.
Nowadays though, I am the guy all bundled up when it is sunny with just a little nip in the air. I need a down jacket and furry hat when the temperature falls below about sixty. I am the guy all the locals think came from the tropics. It is embarrassing. I have become a weather wimp. (Actually, weather wimpier. Apparently, I already wrote about being a weather wimp when it was actually cold.)
Some might think that I have always been a weather wimp and am just now admitting to my shortfall, but that is not the case. Yes, I complained about how much colder the damp made it when I first came across the mountains years ago. Yes, I still think the damp makes the weather seem colder than it really is. But until recently, I was that shorts and socks with sandals guy on the commercial. I was the skier in shorts who was not afraid to fall in the slush. (I have the scar to prove it.) Now though, it does not matter if the sun is beating down on me. If the wind is blowing or the temperature is not in double digits starting with a seven or higher, I am bundled up. Forget those shorts and socks with sandals, I need a parka and want to be dressed like Nanook of the North.
I must admit that I do hate being such a weather wimp. I long for the days when I was the unfashionable but never cold shorts and socks with sandals guy (even though I never really wore sandals except when I was a kid). I long for the days when I did not need to pull out my heavy coat until mid-December or later. I long for the days when I could wear my shorts in the snow if the sun was out.
Okay. I do not really long for those days, but I do long for that attitude. The attitude that says it is not really cold outside until the snot freezes in your nose. And even then, it is not cold enough to zip up your coat if it is sunny. The attitude that says you need to soak up the sun when it is out because you never know when you are going to see the fiery orb again.
But alas. Those days are long gone. I need to bundle up even if I look like a visitor to the Northwest. Even if I look like Nanook of the North when the sun is out. And I am okay with that. I just wonder when I became such a weather wimp.
© 2016 Michael T. Miyoshi
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