Days Like This

It's days like this that are perhaps best kept to ourselves. It's better that the outside world believe that it's either 102 degrees, like yesterday, or -20, like it sometimes is in the winter. They don't need to know about the 77 degree, sunny, lush days like today, which, when accompanied by a light, refreshing breeze, can make one quite affable, to the point of smiling at strangers.

Which is something that we don't generally do here in Minnesota.

But it's the weather that keeps us together. Long winters, excessive heat, humidity that makes you almost gasp for air, bone-chilling cold: these things draw us into conversations, even if it's in grumbling commiseration. Days like today, even if they are not mentioned overtly, make us all feel a little better about ourselves and our fellow humans.

My son is still too young to know that the reason he was a miserable wreck yesterday while outside and then turned into a rambunctious, uncontrollable demon once inside our air conditioned home was because it was stinking hot outside and refreshingly pleasant inside. I asked him if he was hot, and he whined out "Yeaaaaaah," but he is not a reliable source of information about himself and will often answer yes or no to a question based merely on his capricious moods.

Today is a good day to get outside and walk, work in the garden, sit on the porch and watch the neighborhood go by. It's not the best day to sit in a windowless, air conditioned office, but I'll make it work.