BWare

When I first moved to Los Angeles lo these many years ago, I had spring fever every day. Not too hot, not too cold, not too humid [1]. Anywhere that I had lived previously, if there was a day like any average day in LA, you’d take the day off, because there would only be five days like that a year. You couldn’t afford to waste them doing something stupid like school or work.

Eventually, I overcame the impulse to blow off work every day [2], because the weekends were also nice, so it was okay [3]. I’d get my nice days in every weekend [4].

But spring fever is coming back. The summers are no longer mostly pleasant. Humidity, anopheles mosquitos year round, high dew point — the evenings don’t cool off so much. Winter isn’t as cool. No adiabatic frost on the grass. I haven’t even thought about backcountry skiing in the San Gabes in a decade, nor heading up to Baldy for a morning.

You can still avoid it by living over the hill. I still needed a sweatshirt at the Hollywood Bowl in August. Maybe it’ll be worth adding the 90 minute commute back into the day, twice a day, soon. House prices will reflect that, but maybe it’s time to get while the getting is good.

[1] Yeah, it could get hot for a week in the summer a couple of times, but it was a dry heat, and below freezing in the winter in Pasadena, but the evenings cooled off, and the days warmed up. Though I installed central air when the c. 1913 floor heater died around 2005, it didn’t really get turned on very much until 2015
[2] I didn’t
[3] You didn’t used to need to check the weather in the summer between May and the end of September, because tomorrow is going to be just like today, statistically.
[4] and also I would schedule my time so that I could play hooky Wednesday mornings and go to the Hole from 6-11 in the morning in the summer, and ski Mt Baldy from 7-11 in the winter, and still get a full day in. Those days are also gone…