L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Wait Ten Minutes

March 21, 2008 on 3:15 pm | In General Musing |

It’s the standard line about weather in Seattle (”the Intermittent Windshield Wiper Capitol of the World”). Don’t like it? Wait ten minutes. Like a city bus in some fantasy world, new weather will supposedly materialize on schedule.

Today was definitely a wait ten minutes day. An hour or so on the road was like watching TV with an obsessive channel flipper. Light clouds, heavy clouds, mist, drizzle, buckets, rainbows!, sunshine and finally a light dust of snow near my destination.

Still waiting for blue ice, oobleck, frogs and pink lizards.

True weather story: Years ago in the southern California desert on a baking, cloudless summer afternoon we were lounging, somnolent around the kitchen table trying to avoid any heat-producing activity. Simultaneously and for no apparent reason we all rose from our chairs as if the atmosphere had bunched itself under our feet and pushed up. Outside, the light grew thick, though there were still no clouds and a directionless wind whipped the tree tops. The hair on my arms prickled. I went outside. Up and down the street, people were coming out of their houses and looking around. The tension grew oppressive and it became a struggle to breathe. Suddenly, electricity arced between two high tension lines overhead. The blinding violet arc traveled along the lines for a moment accompanied by an earsplitting buzz, until it finally snapped and power went out for miles around. The tension immediately evaporated and everyone exhaled.

The memory of this storm was the germ behind the lyrics to my song, Monsoon.

Weather stories?

See more like that one:

• It's Like a Fish. But It's Not a Fish.
• I Married the Stevie Wonder of Japan
• Wag of the Tongue
• Super Game Bakedown
• Baklava