weather

Autumn is the new summer

If you’d told me that, near the end of the first week of October, I’d still be complaining about it’s being summer…well, I’m not sure I’d have believed you. But the weather has been ridiculous this whole week, disgustingly humid and with temperatures in the high seventies or higher.

I have the air conditioner on high as I type this.

Again, it’s October 5th. I was kind of hoping we’d have some kind of fall.

Meanwhile, the Long Island Railroad isn’t making the commute through that nasty humidity any easier. This morning, they told us all to move up the stairs and across to the opposite platform, when my train was running late, only to have that train stop on the original platform instead. This evening, I got to Penn Station only to discover crowds of people emptying out of my evening train. “I don’t know,” somebody said. “They told us to get off.” The train opposite us was going to the yards, not taking any passengers, so it’s possible there was a mix-up. Or it’s possible the LIRR was just being its usual self.

But it’s not all bad. I was finally able to launch Kaleidotrope’s autumn issue, with lots of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories, poems, art, and horoscopes for your reading delight. Check it out, won’t you?

Tornado Tuesday

Unless you count the tornado, it was a quiet day all around.

Well, it was more a tornado watch, a severe weather warning. We’re being buffeted with heavy rain and wind as I type this, and the wind was crazy all day, but I’m hopeful that will be the worst of it.

Other than that, it was pretty much just an average day at work, from home.

Monday

The weather has started to turn a little cooler, and while it won’t last before rebounding into summer temperatures again for another last hurrah (or two) — the forecast for the week is almost a guarantee of that — it’s turning pleasantly fall-like outside. This morning, after I took the dog out, I came back inside and changed into a long-sleeved shirt. Long sleeves! I know it’s probably already snowing or something close to it where some of you are — not that I’m jealous; not that it was an uncomfortably long and hot summer — but we’ll take what we can get.

Lots of work keeping me busy at the office, and lots of Kaleidotrope stuff keeping me busy in the time in between. Have I mentioned there are three issues full of stories and poems (and art and horoscopes) here, just waiting for you to read them? Maybe even comment?

Anyway, that was Monday.

“I bet you told her all your trees are sequoias.”

Another unpleasantly hot and humid day. Even at seven o’clock this morning, when I drove with my father to Mineola so he could get his car inspected (and could, unlike me last month, get a ride back home), it was muggy and the sun was beating down.

That kept up pretty much all day, but it wasn’t all bad. I kept to the house, read, and watched some of the Olympics. I’d forgotten that trampoline was a sport, despite having had a fitness instructor in college who had been a trampolinist at one point. She said the sport had taken a hit in the 1970s, after one too many accidents and injuries because of unsupervised children on backyard trampolines. Which I guess is why stumbling across it in the online coverage was a little like discovering that Hula Hooping was a sport. But it remains an actual thing, and, from what I saw of the women’s finals, takes a fair amount of gymnastic athleticism.

Then this evening I watched the lovely To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It’s maybe not overly suspenseful by Hitchcockian standards, but it was thoroughly enjoyable.

And that was Saturday.

August, but only just

August is an unpleasantly muggy month. And let me tell you, accidentally wearing your T-shirt backwards all the way to work isn’t a good way to make the commute any more comfortable. (I flipped it when I got to the office.)

The day went by, as most of the rest of this week has: unremarkably. I’m actually quite glad the weekend is here.