Summer showers

One of the quirks of Northern California's weather is that it never rains in the summer. Although this may sound like one more factor making the Bay Area into the earthly near-paradise that it is, it has the unfortunate side effect of making any native of the region woefully unprepared for life in the outside world. The reason I bring this up is that I am currently sitting in a cafe in Montreal (my computer has been fixed, but my internet has decided to stop working in my apartment) watching the grime of last night's revelries on St. Laurent being swiftly swept into the storm drains by a downpour.

The San Franciscan part of my brain is utterly confused by this. Fog, clouds, a brisk wind: these are all common enough in summer, and even hallmarks of it in certain neighborhoods. But seeing dark clouds blot out the sun on a radiant 75-degree day and feeling the first drops hit my face as I look up at the sky just leaves me lost and feeling like I've entered bizarro world, or maybe that I've pulled a Rip Van Winkle and my nap in the park lasted until November. I didn't even used to know that it was just a California thing. I assumed that it was simply the natural progression of the seasons: winter = chilly and rainy, spring = warm and rainy, summer = warm and dry, fall = chilly and dry. I was truly shocked when my mother suggested we bring along an umbrella in case of rain when i was heading out for a summer picnic in New Jersey. I suppose I'm adjusting slightly, but I'm still very weirded out by the whole thing.

You hear that, East Coast? You're weird. I love you anyway.

In other news, I start work on Tuesday, and spoke to my supervisor so I actually know what I'm going to be doing. Or at least I know that I don't have to know what I'm doing.

In other other news, I saw this ad on the side of youtube just now:



AHHHHH. WTF. Why they thought this photo would make anyone want to do this to themselves is beyond me.