Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Climate Shock

November 27, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice

Brother Mark wrote from Ha’il, Saudi Arabia and asked about culture shock for us as we returned to the US. I said no, not much, since the Veendam is a floating exemplar of North American Western culture. After heading to the grocery store this morning, I might modify that response a bit.

Specifically, I began to compare the 39 degree, gray, windy day here in Andover to the 82-86 degree days we just experience in Rio de Janerio. While Cariocas and their tourist companions don their minimal beach garb, grab the nearest towel with an outrageous design and slather on the sun tan lotion, I put on my Ecuadorian alpaca zip up hooded sweater with llamas on it, my Usuhaia winter hat and the wool scarf Kate knitted for me during the first weeks of our trip, to buy groceries.

Geographers and historians warn, rightly I think, about attributing too much influence to climate and geography; still, the difference between a brisk sub 40 degree day and a sunny 85 degree one is substantial. It affects the mind. As I cranked up the Celica and pulled out of the driveway, I felt exhilaration and stimulation, a sort of well, let’s get on with it attitude. My Carioca equivalent woke up, walked outside, felt the warm sun and his mind turned toward the beach, the beautiful women in their revealing swim wear and a night at a salsa bar. Climate has its impacts.

Above the Tropic of Cancer sit the big cultural engines of the world: China, the US, Europe, Russia. That’s partly because of the imbalance of land masses in the north, 60+ % of Earth’s land is in the northern hemisphere and partly because of the geographic and climatological conditions. It takes more effort to survive in temperate climates than in tropical or sub-tropical ones. By that I mean it takes more energy expenditure.

That having to survive drastically different seasonal conditions would have an effect on culture is almost tautological. That it has a positive effect is not so obvious, but it seems to have had at least an impact that requires temperate climate folk to work harder to make it through the long fallow time from late October through sometime in March.

As I went to the grocery store today, I felt this difference vicerally, being only a couple of days away from Ipanema and its sun oriented lifestyle. I’ve never been a sun focused guy, see my post about not being a beach person, so I find the temperate climate suits me. In fact I prefer it so much that I have moved steadily north in my life: Oklahoma to Indiana, Indiana to Wisconsin, Wisconsin to Minnesota.

So, yes Mark, I did experience culture shock, from a hot one to a cold one.

Great Wheel, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Year of Two Springs

October 12, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Full Autumn Moon

A cool rain and a chilly fall evening with wet gold stuck to the bricks and asphalt, a low cloud cover and darkening twilight skies.

Though ready to travel there is a sadness in missing the rest of fall, the transition from this still part summer, part cooler season time to the bleaker, barren time of November. It is a favorite season, the continuing turn toward the Winter Solstice.

We will leave it behind, first for the warmer, much warmer Western Caribbean, then sweaty Panama and hot Ecuador. As we move south, we move into spring with milder temperatures, then, in southern Chile among the fjords and glaciers and around Cape Horn, the southern equivalent of the far north, where temperatures will be cooler. So, for us, 2011 will be a year of two springs.

And, a shortened fall.

Meanwhile, Mark in Ha’il, Saudi Arabia faces 97 as a typical daytime high. Gotta wonder what global warming has in store for the desert kingdom. Sort of the old petrocarbons coming home to roost.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Politics, Weather +Climate

A Changeable Month

October 5, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waxing Autumn Moon

A warm fall night, a clear sky, a half moon high above it all. The moon roof open on the Celica. October in Minnesota. A changeable month.

The Sierra Club set its legislative priorities tonight, though with this particular legislature a good deal, most, of our work will be defensive in nature.

Today saw final touches on my tour of ancient art for a group of Somali teens. I did not know that Somalia was, most likely, the ancient land of Punt. It covers the Horn of Africa like a cap, hugging the coastline north and south while extending in toward the interior. Piracy is not a new activity here in this country positioned close to major shipping lanes for centuries.

Did some editing on Spiritual Resources for Humanists, or With No God, and found it could use some rewriting. I’ll get to that Friday or Saturday.

Aging, Dreams, GeekWorld, Humanities, Memories, Myth and Story, Weather +Climate

Strange Weather

September 26, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Fall New Autumn Moon

A strange weather time. A storm system and winds blowing in from the east. Our weather systems almost always come from the west, following the planet’s rotation and the jet stream, but this raggedy storm system got stuck over Wisconsin and has begun to retrograde, head back west.

The quiet of night. A healing time, the darkness. A moment when the cares of the day can slide away and the still, small voice can speak. The body can collect itself, relax, replenish.

Think of sleep. Almost a third of our lives, maybe 25 years, think of that, 25 years asleep. We are all, in this sense, Rip Van Winkle, unaware as the world changes around us.

In the sleep time our minds create the worlds we inhabit, pluck scenes from stored memories, movie clips, fears and joys, wishes and needs. Vivid life, times of ecstasy and insight flow through our brains, a stream of cobbled together life, chunks of invention. We are each novelists while we sleep, drafting narratives with characters about whom we care deeply.

Here’s the tricky part. If I understand modern neurology, we do the same thing when we’re awake. Our minds take sensory data and create worlds. Narratives form so we can keep the world we create coherent, so we can remember the plot of our lives.

There are parts here that elude me, standing just outside my peripheral understanding. Who is that watches the movie? Who is the narrator? Where is the narrator? Is he a reliable or an unreliable voice? Can we count on this movie? By that I mean does it conform to what we, at least in a common sense way, take as real. True. Out there.

Aging, Retirement, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Jumbled Up Day

September 20, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon

Finalized the Rio plans today. Gonna stay in Ipanema, within a block of the beach. Chose away from the ocean since we will have spent 39 days on it. Plenty. Our Brazil visas are classy, nice pictures, gold striping and good for ten years. A bargain for $180 each.

Dentist today. Regular cleaning. My current dentist, Mahler, retires in two weeks. Two years or so ago his partner, then my dentist, Moghk, retired. The older you live the more the health professionals you’ve counted on begin to leave practice. A bit unsettling. My internist of 20 years moved to Colorado three years ago.

The cloud gray skies around noon today appealed to me. More of the coming inside, writing and research weather that I love.

We’ll miss much of it this year, but we have chosen to cruise during the peak hurricane season. That’s why the prices were so good. I’ve begun paying attention to NOAA.

Weather +Climate

And Now For Weather Completely Different

September 13, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon

The median dates below are for those temperatures at Forest Lake, according to the Climate Center at the University of Minnesota. So, let’s see. 9/14 – 10/17. Over a month early. High 20’s to low 30’s predicted early Thursday am. That’s a real right angle turn for the weather.

    MEDIAN DATES
      IN FALL
 32 F  28 F  24 F
10/5  10/17 10/28

Minnesota, Weather +Climate

Just Like Canada

August 26, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waning Honey Extraction Moon

The nights have grown cooler. The August moon has begun to fade away, and the September moon will not come for a bit. Dark nights approach, a time for the occult.

Minnesota, Mark says, feels like Canada and the Twin Cities feel like Canadian cities. The bright blue August sky, the changed slant of the sun’s rays, the occasional cottony fluff high above us all combine, with cool nights and the gradually decreasing highs to put us in the same northern space as Ontario, our nearest Canadian neighbor.

At our best, we are like Canada. We believe in health care for all people, a good education and jobs that require education. Winter helps define us and, hey, hockey is big. We have an openness to our governance that seems to be true in Canada, too.

We share some totem animals, too: moose, raven, lynx, wolf.

If Minnesota could be the next province, it would fit right in.

Asia, Family, Sport, Weather +Climate

Running Aces Harness Track

August 10, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon

“Those who go overseas find a change of climate, not a change of soul.” – Horace

Horace has an early version here of wherever you go, there you are. My brother has carried the same soul with him from the soi of Bangkok to the exurbs of the Twin Cities.

Mark, Kate and I took off through the beautiful backroads of northern Anoka county and made it, after a couple of years of talking about it, to the Running Aces Harness Track. I’m not kidding about northern Anoka county, much of it is as interesting and as attractive as the northern part of the state. There are large stretches of marsh land and forest, small lakes, pine trees and surprisingly few development thanks to a generally high water table. Driving back in the night it was exactly like traveling on county roads in Cook County.

Running Aces. A subculture, harness racing has a lovely track here with plenty of seating and parimutuel betting. When you drive up, there is a big port cochere, much like the entrance to a resort hotel. On the benches around the curve of the drive a man sat hunched over smoking, his peroxide blonde hair mussed, as if he had been running his hands through it. Just inside the glass doors a floor to ceiling painting commemorates Minnesota’s harness racing legend, Dan Patch.

Floor to ceiling glass doors allow a glimpse of the harness track off to the left, it’s gravel covered surface banked and curved. In the middle of a half moon layout and up on a raised floor was the off track betting area where races throughout the country showed up on several flat screens mounted one next to the other. A woman with bottle red hair, a jean-jacket and sequined cowboy boots passed betting slips to a middle-aged man with an impressive paunch. They studied them, trying to read the runes.

At the right lies the card room. Several Asian folks played Pai Gow Poker, an Americanized version of a game originally played with Mahjhong tiles. There were black jack tables, the James Bond favorite, baccarat, a Mississippi river boat table and several, perhaps 12 or 14 tables filled with 8 players each engaged in Texas Hold’em, the dominant form of poker played on the professional circuit.

We passed those by and headed out to the track. (Though I snuck inside later and checked them both out.)

The betting windows have wood fronts and look much like old bank teller cubicles, save for the How to Bet sign posted below. The betting windows and three lines of chairs occupy an enclosed area that has a full view of the track, but has either A/C or heat depending on the circumstances. Outside there were tables, rows of chairs, a few benches right in front of the track and a restaurant with a patio area.

Kate and Mark had purchased a racing program while I parked and they had it out, trying to read it, figure out the symbols and the information about horses in each of 8 races on the card for the evening. Post time was at 7 pm. We missed the first race, but saw the second. A white Cadillac has a long starting gate arranged like dragon fly wings while extended. The Cadillac takes off and the horses trot up as the Cadillac heads toward the starting point about half way around the large, 5/8ths mile track. When the Cadillac hits the starting point the dragon fly wings retract and the horses take off in a flying start.

Tonight a 3/4 Honey Extraction Moon sat directly over the far straight away as the sky went from blue to dark blue to bruised red then a clear night. The air temp was about 68 degrees. A perfect night for racing.

We didn’t understand much of what was said and even less of what was written, but we did see a couple of races where a horse came from back in the field to win at the end. I noticed a guy in jeans and a windbreaker come to full attention as the horses pounded down the main straight headed for the finish line. What happened mattered to him.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Weather +Climate

A Season Bent Toward Darkness and Cold

August 2, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Room

Since March I’ve driven home at 8 pm, each Sunday, from Tai Chi at the corner of Hennepin and Franklin. As March receded and April arrived, then May and June, the evening drive had light, then light in abundance, with the sun setting well after I got home. Now we are in Lughnasa, a full six weeks past the Summer Solstice. This last Sunday night the sun had begun to fall behind the trees as I headed toward Highway 252. The long downward slide toward the Winter Solstice is well underway, the days growing shorter and the nights longer.

This is my time, now, the season bent toward darkness and cold even while the heat of summer continues to swell the fruits of the garden. I can already feel the movement inward and down, the contemplative months reaching out from the future, beckoning my soul.

Once the harvest begins in earnest, which it did here in July with the garlic crop, the gardening year moves toward senescence, ripening proceeds the coming of brown withered stalks and leaves turning already to dust. Nature puts the bounty just before the fallow time. It is the fallow time though, the time after the sensuality of seed fertility has yielded to summer and produced crops, crops that finish the plants purpose for that season at least, in many cases forever, that leaves room for the imagination, writing its dreams on stubbled fields, carving its fantasies in clouds pushed down from the north, opening the heart to its own rhythm.

(Allison found this Van Gogh drawing. It even has the hint of melancholy the season brings in its train.)

Asia, GeekWorld, Humanities, Weather +Climate

9 Pins

August 1, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Waxing Honey Extraction Moon

Woke up this first day of Lughnasa to Knickerbockers playing 9 pins and throwing strike after strike after strike. A nap on a thundery summer day has a luxurious feel, velvet, cushy. Gertie spent the nap at the foot of our bed. Both she and Rigel have mild ceraunophobia, shrinking when the lightning tears a hole in the sky and air spills into the vacuum.

This morning I translated, sort of, an entire verse of Pentheus’ story. When I say sort of, I mean I’m reasonably sure about the translation in terms of Latin grammar, but not sure what it means. Greg will help me clear that up on Friday. I’ve taken almost three weeks off and it showed. The work went like slogging threw a marsh, progress, but with a lot of effort.

Speaking of effort, I’m now practicing Tai Chi with more regularity, something I’d also let slide over the last month or so. Tai Chi requires muscle memory so the practitioner can concentrate on the form, then become relaxed, totally part of the movement. Some parts have gotten laid down in my neuronal pathways, but, so too have some errors. Sigh. Yesterday’s practice, done in the same dance studio over the former Burch Pharmacy had characteristics of Birkam Yoga. Hot and sweaty.

Got a call from Carlson Toyota this morning. Our Rav4 will have to take a drive of 400 miles to get here, but it will be here tomorrow. The color, white, and the interior, beige, were not what Kate wanted, but they were available. The Tundra, Kate’s faithful companion for 11 years + will get sold to a scrapyard for $500. An undignified end for such a good friend, like the glue factory.