Winter is coming. Look busy. No, wait, that's someone else.

[mrissa]

I overdid it in the heat last night and have been paying since. One of my friends refers to me as a "slightly too-finely-tuned machine," and I'm afraid this is true in some regards. I am not built for heat. I come from those people who raided the coasts of Ireland, mopped their brows, and said, "Oof, it's hot down here in the steamy tropics. Also they seem mad about those nuns. Let's go home." The ones who could stand the heat went off to be soldiers for the Byzantine Empire, and the others waved and smiled and shouted, "Send home silver!" -- and bred up some more little cold-loving babies, which eventually resulted in me.

When we lived in California, sometimes I would have a really excellent time and would enjoy the place we were and the people we were with and the stuff we were doing. But I was always homesick underneath it; underneath it -- and not too far underneath -- was the awareness that I was not where I belonged. I was only a temporary visitor; I was going home soon. I'm like that about summer, too. I'm only a temporary visitor to summer. I can enjoy its tank tops and its long bright evenings and its fresh peas and cherries, but underneath it, I am homesick for winter.

I think maybe one of the reasons I bounced off the George R. R. Martin books is that, "Winter is coming," always seemed like such a cheerful family slogan to me. "Winter is coming! Eeeee! *bounce bounce*"

Anyway, I will try to be more careful in the future with water and shade and so on (I'm already careful with sunblock), and in the meantime I'm somewhat prepared-ish for the driveway work to start today. I have moved the car out of the garage. We got the trees trimmed yesterday where they hung over the driveway.

Anyway. I'm still a little shaky and trying to get on the right side of hydrated, so I think it's one of those days I'll ask you people to tell me something good. With a theme! Tell me one of your favorite things about someone close to you. Parent, partner, friend, child, co-worker, fourth cousin twice removed, whatever. Something nifty about them.

Or, I suppose, something nifty about summer, to help me enjoy my stay here until winter comes back to me. That would be fine, too.

Comments

[chang3002.livejournal.com]

I am built of German, Danish and Dutch stock. Not exactly heat loving types. I am sitting in a sun-filled apartment on a very hot day. I am wondering if I have the energy to lug AC's up from the basement and install them. Maybe I'll just do the fans today.

Yet I love me hot yoga. I love to practice in a 95F+ room with a good sweat going and the feeling that it could get even hotter.

Outside the room, I pour on the AC and know that I make Al Gore cry. I am a mess of hypocrises.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ooh, better you than me. Hot yoga nauseates me.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

I cannot tell you anything good about summer, as I have a similar relationship with it -- and I was dumb enough to move to Baltimore.

But I can tell you something nifty (or maybe just weird) about somebody! One of my fiance's more charming and quirky features is his totally irrational fear of gazebos. It's made wedding planning a little harder than it needs to be -- there can't even be one on the property. It's probably wrong to think somebody's fear is funny, but it just is!

[rosefox]

He does know about "I shoot the gazebo", yes?

[chang3002.livejournal.com]

Shoot, I didn't read the whole post in the beginning and I missed the whole "tell-me-something-good" part. Okay, here goes:

My friend Matthew wrote a book about SOnic Youth's Daydream Nation for the 33 1/3 series. This is especially poignant because Stewie, as he is known to some, has gone through some serious hardships in life and got this book written after facing up to them. Love him like a brother and he may even make me like SY now.

Oh, and my wife and kid are just awesome. They are the coolest. Even on a hot day like this. I love you, Alice and Sophia. I am a blessed man.

[ckd]

Last night we watched one of the GSN reruns of The Amazing Race. (They're showing one episode a day, at 3 am or something silly like that. Prime TiVo bait.)

In this particular leg from season 6, they're traveling through Norway and Sweden. (Admittedly, this part was filmed in August 2004, so it's not exactly winter.) One of the tasks is at the Icebar in Stockholm, where they have to don parkas for the "23 degree temperatures" inside.

That sounds good to me right about now. (Current temperature at KBOS: 89°F and 52% humidity.)

This comes after the first leg's overnight stay on a glacier in Iceland, with one Racer taking a "snow bath" to wake up and another complaining that her "implants are frozen"....

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had never thought of that among the drawbacks of implants, but my goodness, yes, I would suppose so.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

The closest person to me right now is cadithial, so I will tell you something about him.

Out of all the times ladysea has hit him with books, he has never hit her back once.

[pabba.livejournal.com]

Winter is coming! Everyone, put on your galoshes!!!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I am apparently descended from the ones who went to the Byzantine Empire.

I thrive on sunlight and heat. If I co-opted my fiance's love of baking, I would be Rae Seddon from Robin McKinley's Sunshine, except that I can't do anything magic with the light, at least not that I've noticed. But sometimes I will just sit outside in the sun and feel like it is soaking into me, recharging some solar battery deep inside. I am Scandinavian and Swiss German, but I am also Texan, and I need me some summer if I am to function. As do we all, really: even the most Viking- or Siberian- or Inuit-blooded of us is not that far removed from the hominids that wandered out of the tropics of Africa. Without "cultural solutions" such as clothing and controlled fire to keep us warm, human beings will die of hypothermia at temperatures below sixty degrees.

This is one of those times when I use this icon not because it is my default, but because it is the right icon to use.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

I'm a British-German Canadian, but Bryn, you're my people.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

When we lived in California, sometimes I would have a really excellent time and would enjoy the place we were and the people we were with and the stuff we were doing. But I was always homesick underneath it; underneath it -- and not too far underneath -- was the awareness that I was not where I belonged. I was only a temporary visitor; I was going home soon.

I love this description, particularly with your juxtoposition with the seasons. I feel this way, too, when I leave the arid, high altitude, West, or anytime I'm in a place without a horizon.

Here are some reasons to love summer:
* popsicles & icecream are enjoyable anytime of year, but particularly lovely against the heat
* time and warmth to enjoy sunsets and stars
* fresh fruits & vegetables
* drinks on the patio
* strappy sandals
* lightening bugs

Of course, what I love most about summers is when the heat goes away at the end of the day. I want to hide between 10-7.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Maybe I have mentioned this to you before -- I don't know. But when I was reading Joel Garreau's The Nine Nations of North America, lo these many moons ago, I got to a line where he said, "On the prairie, the horizon is the central feature of the landscape." And I just had to stop and let my brain rearrange itself, because -- I thought it was like that everywhere. I thought that people who lived in mountains liked jaggedy horizons and people who lived in rain forests liked high, high horizons, and like that. It was the reverse of those experiences when you think, "I'm not alone!": "I'm not universal! I'm a great deal more alone than I thought!" It was fascinating trying to make my brain reset on this.

[rosefox]

Right now I am chock-full of things I appreciate about my coworkers. I covered for a fellow editor for a week while she was on vacation, and she brought me back a bar of Scharffen Berger 70% dark chocolate and gave me good feedback on my work. My immediate supervisor continues to be all-around awesome and extremely easy to work for. I just bumped into the first situation requiring the department head to say "Come in and shut the door"; she gently explained the (really quite minor) issue, I readily agreed to do things differently, she said, "Thanks. Everything else is terrific! C just told me what a great job you did for her." That was it. I don't feel like anyone's looking over my shoulder waiting for me to screw up. I get my work done, it makes me happy, it makes other people happy, I go home satisfied, I wake up every Monday thinking "Yay, I get to go back to work!".

This is hands-down the most functional, sensibly run office I've ever encountered, let alone had the privilege to work in. I am full of job-love!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Good!

[tewok.livejournal.com]

I'm right with you on winter. Growing up and still living in the DC area, you'd think I'd be fine with excess heat and humidity, but I can't stand it. Gimme that old time coldligion! Next year, my wife and I are planning to celebrate our 20th anniversary in Iceland. In January.

Something good, something good...

My father is a great friend of mine. He was my high school band teacher and music theory teacher. We had a blast in class -- joking around, making literary references, all sorts of things that few of the other students understood. He started me reading the John Carter of Mars and Tarzan books when I was young, so I got a great background in chivalry and honor. He gave me a boxed Tolkien set and Asimov when I was 12, so I had a good and early base in fantasy and science fiction.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Asimov was when I was 11. When I was 12, my dad gave me Kress and Hawking.

Tolkien was...oh, golly, prenatal, along with his orgo book.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I love spring and fall, and love all of summer but the heat... and, apparently, the long days. The last week or two, my schedule's been screwy because I've internalized things like 'dinner is after dark' and 'shower at night'. I really ought to migrate with spring and fall.

Good summer things: flowers. You don't get the big brazen flowers in spring. Nasturtium with crazy round leaves! Hollyhocks, and all sorts of lilies, and four o'clocks are just getting noticeable if not blooming. Farmer's markets have flowers and green food and they happen early in the day. Some people have yards you can look at that change over time-- so many flowers it's lovely. Petunias, and snapdragons, and jewelbox celosia, daisies daisies daisies gerbera daisies and daisies, alyssum, moss roses, sprinklers and hose water, also shade trees for sitting under.
Okay, so my must-have-bright-bright-colors brain turns me into a summer person.

My friend Susan the Kiwi, who is not fruit, bird, or New Zealandic, always makes me happy. Always. She is always smiling. She's one of the few people who inspires me to physical affection, not just for her, but for everyone for about an hour after I've seen her. She laughs at me and even though she isn't running ahead of my brain like some people, she'll follow along if I occasionally footnote or explain a word ("Cognates? Cognates?"). We used to have physics bacchanaliae in the library basement; she'd bring a bit of food, I'd bring a bit of food, one of us would have grapes, and we'd fight with homework and talk about her crush on the professor. We made pudding, rather, we updid (a horrific typo and verbing). She has cats, has said she'd take my family's snake but hasn't had time, loves animals, and is one of the brightest people in my life, for values of bright involving color, light, and everything that makes gardens good.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Physics bacchanaliae. Boy, if that doesn't take me back....

I don't know that anyone had crushes on our professors. I thought Tom was adorable -- still do -- but that's in the "you could make the physics professor stuffed animal out of that guy!" way, not the "you sexy thing!" way. I sometimes refer to them as my six geeky uncles, and it was very much that tone of relationship.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the heat. Whew. I told someone recently, "I'm not a beach person. My ancestors only *crossed* beaches to pillage stuff."

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yep. Ancestors on my mother's side same. Farthest south anyone wanted to get was Red Wing, MN. I had heat stroke for the first time at about ten. I've lived here for all but a year of my life, and it's a constant state of war with the heat. Going to northern climes feels like home. (Though I don't know how well I'd do with bitter freeze, at my age.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of my great-uncles once told us that if he had to move to a big city, he'd pick Red Wing. Or maybe Winona.

[katharine-b.livejournal.com]

Good thing: this book I'm writing now is based on my dad's mother's memoir, and he is SO EXCITED about it. He's reading my drafted bits as I finish them, sitting around and scanning photos for me when he's bored, telling me over breakfast about ideas he had about the book overnight. And this makes me very happy, too, because it's giving him something to think about other than chemo. Good all around!

Hope you feel less fried today. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely, and thanks.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Nifty summer thing that you (I think?) appreciate: thunderstorms.

Nifty summer thing that I appreciate, in humid climates: going outside feels like getting a hug from Mother Nature.

Neat thing about someone close to me...hmm...you know how yawning is infectious? Well, onehipmama sometimes laughs so hard she can't breathe, she just kind of goes *gasp*wheeeeee*gasp*wheeeee, and that has been known to infect the people around her. It's fun watching people trying to say "Stop laughing!" when they can't get the words out.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do love thunderstorms, although we get them spring and fall here, and even thundersnow.

I don't think I know Mother Nature well enough to be comfortable with her hugging me. I think we're on more handshake terms, really.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had that problem when I was showing Clint's parents around San Jose, and it wasn't even that hot. Just...warm, and very bright and sunny. I don't know what my excuse is. To the best of my knowledge I have no heritage north of the British Isles or Germany. :p

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

What I love about Amber:

(http://gallery.greenfld.net/v/amber_lynn/friends/P1000239.JPG.html)

*crosses fingers, hoping html tags show up right in comments*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeee!

SO BIG!

*sprints off to gallery*

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

I come from those people who raided the coasts of Ireland, mopped their brows, and said, "Oof, it's hot down here in the steamy tropics. Also they seem mad about those nuns. Let's go home."

Um... yah. And here I am in the Greater DC area. Silly me.

A Good Thing: my best friend (of 33 years) is having a baby (her first) in November. November is a good time to have a baby down here (yes, we both migrated from NH to DC - go figure). I am filled with unholy glee at the prospect of this wee one.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I, too, am a winter sort of person. :)

[laurel]

My favorite seasons are spring and fall, I enjoy the change of seasons and the moderate temperatures-- not too hot, not too cold. COol enough for sweaters or light jackets is awesome.

I know I need a little summer, but I just can't handle the heat. It gets worse the older I get.

I suppose one nifty thing about my husband is that he had central air added to this almost 100-year-old house. :-)

kaustin is freaking hilarious. Silly. Patient. Kind. A friend to animals (they really really like him). He's got rhythm in spades even though he doesn't dance in public (other than wiggling in his chair). He's a pretty good mimic in subtle ways. A physical comedian. He knows a lot about pop culture which is a fun surprise for me given so few of my friends seem to get my obscure references to pop music and sports etc.-- Kevin almost always does. He doesn't mind doing the dishes (a task I hate more than just about anything). Potentially embarrassing situations in TV shows or movies make him hide behind a pillow or something else (or leave the room). I could go on and on, obviously. He's really cool.

Nifty things about summer: the rose garden at Lake Harriet in full bloom, concerts at the Lake Harriet bandshell, frozen custard from Adele's in Excelsior (and walks along the park on the Lake Minnetonka in Excelsior), boat rides on Lake Minnetonka, the Minnesota Twins, trips to the north shore of Lake Superior (for cooler weather, hooray!), squealer bugs (a.k.a. cicadas), flower gardens in full bloom, watching people walk/run/bike/skate around any of the Minneapolis lakes, air conditioning, people going to the movies to stay cool, hanging out on the porch at night, ice cream Sebastian Joe's, Crema/Sonny's, DQ, Culver's, and all the rest), dogs in lakes, etc.

[laurel]

I totally forgot to mention fresh from the garden tomatoes, fresh sweet corn (and the stands along the highways), grilling outdoors, sunflowers, campfires, farmer's markets, and the many outdoor festivals of Minnesota small towns (and South Dakota ones too).

[redbird]

Nifty summer-and-partner thing: cattitude and I have been sharing large quantities of really good locally grown blueberries and strawberries in the last fortnight.

And something else nifty: my mother doesn't always understand me, but she doesn't let that stop her from being supportive.

[arkuat]

One nice thing about summer is the stars in the direction of Sagittarius and Scorpius. That's toward the center of the galaxy and they're really spectacular. Of course, you have to drive out way into the country where they have mosquitoes and stay there after dark to see them, but hey. Tonight the Moon and Antares and Jupiter are making a nice triangle in the southern sky, and Antares wouldn't be there if it weren't summer.

[arkuat]

Oh, yes, and dragonflies. Mustn't forget the dragonflies.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Sometimes rysmiel, who likes summer, will wear the "Winter is Coming" t-shirt just to cheer me up when it's too hot for me.

I don't know how people cope with this heat.

It isn't at all the same as winter, where you can just put another layer on, or stay inside. I spent all day yesterday in the Grande Biblotheque, which has the best free air-conditioning in town.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Libraries often have the best AC. I don't know why that is.

As if there isn't already a shorttage of tank tops.

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= Hey, if you want a winter, there's a whole 'nother hemisphere you can visit. Leave the rest of us to our summer clothes and appreciation thereof.

I'm a little grumpy having just returned from New York City (where there really is a summer) to fogbelt San Francisco. Not so many tank tops here; more like combat boots.