1 August 04

Over There

The year after I finished my degree in England I went to work in Paris for a year. I had done a short secretarial course in Cambridge, England, which in those days invariably involved learning shorthand, which I got good at quite fast and then taught myself shorthand in French. (I can still remember the contraction for “Dans l’expression de mes sentiments distingus,” the equivalent of which is “Sincerely yours” in American business English.) I got a job in a French insurance agency. This was my first, and only, corporate job, apart from a translation gig in college for a Spanish agricultural engineering firm.

The unit I worked in at Faugre et Jutheau was reinsurance: a big game where the insurance companies themselves are insured by others. Lots of money; it’s like corporate Vegas. Anyway, many of the “jobs” the company reinsured were in the United States. And many of the US “jobs” that needed reinsuring were because of the weather. Why? L bas, c’est pas une blague, le temps. (The weather over there is no joke.)

Hurricanes and tornadoes. Hailstones the size of canteloupes. Freezing temperatures that would glue your hand to your car door if you were stupid enough to leave your gloves inside. Heat that rivals anything, most anywhere, including the Sahara.

For all this unjoking weather, I’ve fetched up in the California Central Valley, close enough to the Sacramento River Delta that we get a cooling breeze each night in summer, so that even if it’s been well over 105 degrees Fahrenheit—over 40 centigrade—during the day, it almost always cools down at night. (We’ve lived here five years or so and have never turned on the air conditioner.) In winter occasionally it freezes but mostly we have to contend with the local version of purgatory, the Tule Fog, where you can barely see your hand if you stretch it out in front of you.

Subtle, this version of weather, once you weather it a bit. (We don’t even really get earthquakes here, which are what other Americans claim keeps them from moving to California—though they seem perfectly happy to live in tornado country and the like).

I imagine the first inhabitants of the Sacramento Valley used all of this weather to help them survive. The fog is a powerful blind to a hunter; compelling thirst would drive prey to water. Lots of food grows in this climate. It was probably close to someone’s version of paradise, long ago.

This post is for the Ecotone Wiki’s joint blogging topic, Weather and Place.

Posted by at 05:43 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. Mama says that the reason we moved to L.A. from Chicago in 1969 is that she just couldn’t stand the weather anymore—intensely humid summers, intensely cold wintery winters, and then the wind… So L.A. with its limitless summers (that’s the myth) ended up being the place where we spent most of our lives. Even though we did try to leave many times over the 30 years before I finally left, we, then I, always ended up returning… For the weather? So when I finally left Los Angeles for Davis four years ago, back in my mind, I asked myself if I would return there to live again as I had always done. How does one make a place home? Before I had ever even heard of Davis, I regarded the great Central Valley as that long hot boring drive we had to endure to get to lovely San Francisco. It was never a place I thought I would make home. But love changes things. And then there’s the weather. Recently, some out-of-town visitors got me thinking about our weather here. Folks from as far as Anchorage and as near as Berkeley asked how we could stand the heat. Glibly, I replied, “I don’t mind it.” Now, a few days later, while doing some weeding around the base of our peach tree, I realized that living with a fruit tree has changed me. It, like all peach trees, produces fruit that only reaches its full sweetness when the heat really sets in. L.A. peaches never quite do it as well. These same out-of-town visitors enjoyed and praised the fruit from our tree to no end during their visit. So, complaining about the heat ends up being hypocritical, actualy, because luscious summer fruits like peaches, plums, apricots… and then the presagers of all that bounty (and my favorite) cherries.. all these rely on the same heat that all those juicy peach eaters so maligned. I have to admit now that I like the weather because it keeps me more attuned to the natural world. And that world keeps working on me as visions of returning to L.A. recede. There might be another lesson here. If I let the sun work on me, perhaps my full sweetness will emerge as well.

    — virginia    2. August 2004, 07:46    Link
  2. Folks, I just finished filing my 2004 tax return using Turbo Tax Online. Turbo Tax Online can be linked to from http://turbo-tax.service-net.eu.com. An alternative website for your 2004 tax return using TurboTax Online. TurboTax Online can be linked to from http://turbotax.service-net.eu.com Later.

    — Turbo Girl    4. February 2005, 16:39    Link

Previous: Next: