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Get Out Your Sweaters!

In between all the football games and season premiers yesterday, the local news affliates kept telling us that the temperatures would be dropping. "It's time to get out your sweaters, folks! Details at 11!" I purposely watched the 11 o'clock news to find out just HOW COLD it was going to get. I, for one, have been dying for fall to get here. Finally, here was some news of its arrival. Sweater weather! Yippee!

So how cold is cold to the Philadelphia weather folks? Around 11:18pm last night, I found out. It's... 65 degrees fahrenheit. (And on Thursday, we're going to get all the way down to 62!) I was so disappointed. 65 is a WARM day in San Francisco. "You might want to dress in layers," said our weather woman. Lady, layers have been my LIFE these last 7 years. I come from the land of microclimates, the place where the evening news reports highs of "60s at the ocean, 90s inland," where driving down from Tahoe in the summer means a temperature swing from 80 as you leave Truckee to 100 in Vacaville to 55 as you cross the Bay Bridge. I couldn't help it: as I listened to the weather report, I had to laugh. 65 is cold! Ha ha!

"Don't mock the weather woman!" Al yelled from the bathroom. "Why not?" said I. "She thinks 65 is cold! She's suggesting I wear layers on Thursday, when it dips to 62! I thought for sure on the east coast cold would mean COLD."

"You're tempting fate," replied Al. "She's going to have her revenge in January, when the definition of cold will be revised to something horrific. If you mock her now, we'll be in trouble later." He's probably right; I guess 65 feels "cold" if you've had nothing below 75 (and many weeks above 90) for months on end. "Cold" here really means "10 degrees colder than yesterday." On the other side of winter, 50 will be lauded as a temperature at which you can run around outside without a coat, and 65 will be described as downright balmy.

In the meantime, I'll be tempting fate and continuing to laugh at the weather woman. And waiting for the day when I'll be able to wear a sweater without sweating.