The San Francisco Bubble

i am embarrassed to admit that today in san fran, we have a sunny, blue sky, 51 degrees F. we've been eerily excluded from the crazy harsh weather the rest of the world has been going through. even Taipei is having a colder winter than us- trust me, they're suffering. for what it's worth, i can't remember a winter this un-winter-y in the past five years that i've lived here. usually we get the sunny/blue sky combo 3 months of the year: sept-nov. the rest of the time it's foggy, overcast, misty, and bone-chillingly cold. i get a perverse pleasure watching tourists huddle together for warmth downtown in august (as i self-righteously push through them in my scarf + gloves + hat) because they had no idea SF is not warm nor sunny, as most ppl imagine Cali to be. i never owned any down-stuffed clothes or long underwear until i moved here and found myself on yard duty at 7:30 a.m. on a playground so misted over i could barely see the gate to the street on the other side. what a waste of 18 years of cold weather training in CT.

we get 10-20 mph winds at night, though- is that harsh and winter-y? at night it sounds like a 200 lb. bear is throwing itself insistently at our front door. this takes place against the chorus of plastic parts outside of our building that haven't been nailed down properly, all banging and clackety-clacking away in a frenzy.

i know, small potatoes. as with everything else, SF residents continue to stride down the sidewalks, pushing their sport-utility strollers in one hand, pulling a leash in the other, and juggling a fair-trade, shade-grown soy latte in another (they have lots of hands, though they really should put the latte in the stroller's cupholder), all the while talking loudly into their ear pieces- oblivious to the fact that elsewhere in the country, ppl's homes are collapsing under the weight of the snow. we need to have a sunshine drive, to somehow express-ship out parcels of warm weather to parts of the country who need it more than we do. but until i figure that out, here's a link to pics of a collapsed barn in my home state, CT.
 avon.patch.com