Give My Umbrella to the Rain Dogs

I often tell non-natives that there are two seasons here- three months of warm sun and nine months of cold, wet overcast days. Most of the time I feel like I’m exaggerating, but nothing seems closer to the truth today than this. It seems like we had a transition period of three or so days where it was a bit colder while still managing to be sunny. But even so, the weather change seemed to come out of nowhere.

I have mixed emotions about the return of our typical Seattle weather. On one hand, I’m happy it’s raining because this summer has been too dry. On the other hand, I’m kind of sad that we’re moving out of Summer as it means I’ll have to start German 202 (nothing makes me shudder more than this). I’m also going to lose the joy of eating all of my freshly grown tomatoes and basil. How sad!

The adjustment between Summer and Rainy (my name for the season that is considered three seasons elsewhere in this world) is the hardest for me. Just when I’ve acclimated to the hot days, the cold and rainy days hit me out of nowhere. Fortunately, I have a longer season to adjust to for the cold days. But, then again, out of nowhere the temperatures seemingly skyrocket and I find myself sweating buckets for the first month of summer. Deodorant may keep me from smelling bad, but it sure doesn’t keep me from sweating like many advertisements have informed me it should. (Does that mean its false advertisement? Can I sue and put myself through college because I bought said product to keep myself from sweating and it didn�t work?)

Anyway, it certainly looks like Summer is officially over and Rainy has officially begun. I better get off my ass and go dig up those pepper plants I wanted to overwinter for next year. Ah, the joys of a P-Patch…

P.S. The title is from Tom Waits’ “Rain Dogs”.