The Autobiography of a
METEOROLOGY
1. How is meteor-ology the study of weather? And if it is correct, why are meteors called that? Are they weather? So I looked it up and got this :
2. ORIGIN mid 16th century (denoting any atmospheric phenomenon): from modern Latin meteorum, from Greek meteōron, neuter (used as a noun) of meteōros ‘lofty’.
I guess any natural thing that happens in the sky counts… Well now let’s talk about weather. When I was a kid in Indiana we had 4 completely separate seasons each one of about the same duration. Spring was pretty, still a little cool, warm and flowers came out, Summer was hot. Fall was still warm, but cool in the morning and it smelled like leaves burning most of the time. Winter was cold and icy and it snowed and they were all about 3 months long. 4 seasons, 12 months, it made sense. In Minnesota, winter is the king and it takes up an inordinate amount of the year. And in Texas summer is the monarchy extending the heat as long as it wants and often interrupting any and all other seasons it feels like randomly or continuously. There’s really no way to know what you might get there, but if you guess hot you will be right most of the time. Louisiana is less predictable. Summer will be summer for sure, but spring, fall and winter can all be interchangeable all of the other time – and often all in one day you might get a taste of them all. Adding to unpredictability, it might be hot in the morning and cold in the afternoon. Those days will fool you every time. It’s 70º at 6:00am so you wear a light shirt, by 4:00pm its 40º. I have more than one jacket I had to run to Walmart and buy because I got away without a sweater or long sleeves. And there was a time I carried all of these precautionary clothes in my car along with 3 umbrellas and extra shoes and 4 pairs of gloves and they took up a lot of space and I took them out because it was 98º for 3 or 4 months and I needed room to carry groceries or some other necessary thing and I forgot to restore them to the “what if” pile and that random day where the temp drops a degree every 30 minutes hit and there I am again looking in the clearance section at Walmart for a jacket or sweater.
I was a lifeguard at a pool when I was in high school and college. I was on the swim team at school so I naturally used my aqueous powers to gain employment that allowed tanning and being outdoors. There was nothing better at that age, believe me. It was a dream. I would have been at that pool anyway, and this way I got paid for it. I rode my bike the 10 or so miles to work every day and I was also getting a lot of exercise. I would pay to have that going on now. Swim season was in the winter, so I had year round activity going on. I was also getting enough activity that I could afford to eat and be lazy as much as I wanted. I could eat fried fish sandwiches and hamburgers and fries and spaghetti and bread and cereal and milkshakes and whatever I wanted. One summer, I only ate once a day after riding my bike home and since my mom was not the kind who cooked dinner – ever, I would eat cereal and then go meet my friends somewhere to do the things teenagers do and I lost so much weight that summer. I didn’t even try to. I was just busy and just didn’t think about it much.
During the winter swim season my laziness manifested in things like not taking the trouble to dry my hair after practice and walking to my car in below zero weather. Having frozen hair by the time I got in the car was kind of fun. Once I froze my shoes on the roof and drove home and they were still there when I got home. I was a rebel. I say “was” as if I am not still. (spoiler – I am still).
GEOGRAPHY
I live in Louisiana. I haven’t lived here all my life. I’ve lived other places which has given me the ability to say that I think Louisiana is not really known outside of Louisiana. It kind of a mystery, really. The majority of people think it’s all Mardi Gras, crazy funeral parades and Swamp People with a zydeco soundtrack playing all the time in the background. Either that or a place where real vampires live. Louisiana is small, unlike Texas, but like Texas – where I have also lived- it has incredible resident pride. It’s not like anywhere else for sure. I can’t say that about all the states. Is there a difference between al of the square ones in the middle? I flew over them for the first time last year and I was amazed at how much desert and mountains there are between the Mississippi and California. I also did not have any idea that California was so mountainy. If you knew my age, you would wonder how on earth I missed all of this geography in my life. Look I got A’s in school, it’s not my fault that I never learned that. And at this point it hasn’t limited me or anything. I have enjoyed much social, personal and professional success without it.
I have often wondered why Louisiana is portrayed with so many mystical connections like for instance, Vampire fiction. Like the Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris books that are centered here. For some reason it works. Are we more inclusive of fictional characters… is it more believable that it could happen here? It might have something to do with the way people eat here. I mean they will literally eat ANYTHING. Squirrels, raccoons, like seriously. I grew up in Indiana and its basically, Corn, Chicken, Beef, corn, corn, corn, hot dogs, corn, biscuits, pork and berry pies. And possibly milk. But Louisiana people cook up stuff an Indiana person will use for bait and they spice it up and serve it with rice and well… most of it is really good. But it’s still bait. And maybe that correlates to people who are not the same as other state people.
Minnesota is perhaps the roughest place I have ever lived. It’s colder than there is any reason to be and it is cold longer than there is any reason to be as well. The people are made of iron or maybe just frozen dirt that is as hard as iron. In the time I lived there, if you died in the winter, they put you in a freezer until spring when they could dig up the ground. But I hear that nowadays they have super diggers that don’t break and people can be buried. Men do not treat women like fragile little dolls and they are not and wouldn’t have it if anyone did. Everyone is truly equal and men and women do not have defined roles. Everyone does car work and cooks and changes diapers and it’s just very androgynous and did I mention cold? I thought I had winter clothes when I moved there from Indiana. I did not. And to move to Houston from there seems like it would have been very drastic, but it so happens the time I drove from Minneapolis to Houston, it was 34ºF in MN and 16ºF in Houston… Who could have guessed that would happen??? And stupidly, the car I bought new in MN had no A/C which turned out to be a huge mistake considering the alarmingly quick warm up from the aforementioned deep freeze to the usual summer scorching. Have you heard about how hot it gets in Houston?
Just Between Us 