Weather or Not

Grampy has three reasons left to live. #1 is to complain about the weather ,#2 is to collect coupons and #3 is to harass the dog that lives next door.

Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert.
These are NOT the trees I'm talking
about, though.

Grampy lives within spittin' distance of us but I call him a couple times a week to see how he is, and right off the bat I get the weather report. “It's blowing like holy hannah over here.” he'll say (whenever there's a hint of a breeze) “I've never lived in a town that had such god-awful wind storms”. For the record, Grampy lived in the Mojave desert for a good part of his honery life and if you've ever been to that fair region, you'll remember noticing that all the trees grow sideways—being constantly battered by the strong south winds that are a permanent part of the climate there. Here in this town (which sits in a valley, just over the mountains from that desert), an occasional wind storm means that much-needed rain is on the way and we look forward to it greedily. We have a fairly temperate climate here. It doesn't freeze in the winter (I can't remember the last time I wore my winter coat), and the summers are hot but relatively dry. Pretty nice if you ask me...but don't ask Grampy.

Grampy's Thermomoter. It's never wrong.

NO weather is good weather in his book. His rain gauge isn't half full or half empty, it's rusty and broken and he's thrown it in the trash. Every weatherman is a crook and they all have one thing in common—they are all liars. They predict sun and a few clouds might pass in the sky. They tell us it will rain and we'll go the whole day with nary a drop of precipitation till nightfall. They'll give us a high temp of 87 and Grampy will check the beat-up Pepsi thermometer nailed to the outside of his single-wide every hour in hopes of proving them wrong. God forbid we ever see any of our local weather-casters at Walgreens or Foods Co. some day. Grampy won't hesitate to give them a piece of his mind. So I am always prepared when I talk to or see Grampy, for predictions of doom and gloom.

My flowering plum trees this spring.

One beautiful spring day Grampy came over for dinner. The windows were open, the birds were chirping, the hummingbirds were humming, the BBQ was sizzling...it was the quintessential perfect day. He walked in the door and I was eager to hear the daily weather report from him. There was absolutely nothing negative he could say so I beat him to the punch - “Hi Dad! Just look how gorgeous the weather is today!” as I gestured to the open french doors to the back yard. Then I paused. At last, I thought to myself, I will hear his praise for mother nature. “Yeah” he said as he looked out the screen door at two butterflies frolicking in the flowers in my garden. “But it will probably be hotter than hell tomorrow.”

Deep sigh. He had me there.