Wither, Dither, Whither the Weather?
July 25th, 2006
July 25, 2006
Southern California weather is the climactic equivalent of Henry Mancini. Ninety-five percent of the year it is mere background. To some, it serves as impetus to get up and meet the surf; for others, it is the entire reason for living in a congested maze with many a movie rat. Some view it as a most pleasant foundation upon which to pursue their dreams (approximately 3.4 million of them—mostly from Indiana); some exult its near perpetual state of arid bliss. I have noted that talking about the weather is not something that southern Californians do, other than to say, “Man, it’s beautiful. This is why I love it here!” But most of the time it is wallpaper.
Not so this week. Southern California is talking weather, baby! Straight up. Bordering on obsessive. Manic. Depressive. Impressive in its volume.
At a recent screening of “Pirates of the Caribbean” we sat behind a woman who was slumped on the shoulder of her companion. Asleep or dead, we couldn’t tell—not until a friendly face arrived next to us, at which point Little Miss-Asleep-Not-Dead rubbed the crusties from her greens and started singing the weather blues. I have never heard such whiners:
“Can you believe how hot it is? Our air conditioner didn’t even cool the bedroom—in the bedroom! We’ve been too hot to do anything. And our cat is pissed.”
“I know, I know…does anything get accomplished in this kind of weather?”
And on and on…and on it went. Fifteen minutes to wax weather before Johnny Depp swaggered, at once fay and Keith Richards. Fifteen minutes to read the same sentence in my book fifteen times because Miss Former Texan, Formerly Dead or Asleep just couldn’t over “the humidity! Ugh!” She was still slumped on her equally tired companion’s shoulder, wondering how she was going to “make it through the movie”—in which pirates fight the ocean turbulence, outrun cannibals, outwit slimey sea creatures, and do battle with imperialists.
We have become a very sad nation, indeed. I am not immune to this Urban Refusal. But I’m from places with real, regular weather patterns. Sort of.
Just as I was going to recommend “Pirates of the Carribbean” to several friends (all back, in, or from New Orleans), just when I thought, ‘What a great way to beat the heat, go see this!’ I thought better of it: So much water. So much looting.
All that water.
So I kept the thumbs up to myself. Because it’s been eleven months since the Flood and people are dying from depression. Not because their once hardy constitutions can’t take the heat, but because there aren’t enough beds in the psych wards and because there is only one public mental health facility left—located in the old Lord & Taylor department store. Because they can’t get home.
I’m concerned; selfishly so. When people are obsessed with their own nasty weather, they can’t be bothered about the havoc it wreaked somewhere last summer. War and reality tv are one diversion, but humidity where it never rains? I’m worried everyone will forget, for once and for all. I’ve been asked too many times, “So, everything’s alright there now…right?”
I return home to New Orleans this Friday, after four months away, for business and for pleasure. To revel in what is found only there—and to lament the passings and losses.
I can almost hear a second line….