Micro-Climates

After the cool rainy spring, warm weather has finally arrived in the Bay Area. It's not too hot yet, just pleasantly sunny, though the grass in our yard has already started to resemble stalks of straw. It doesn't take much for the green to evaporate in this dry climate. I remember noticing that fact some years ago when we returned from a trip to the UK. When we got off the plane in San Francisco, I was astonished at how dry the air was. It was mid-October. Compared to the England we had left behind, the California sun was bright and glaring, the sky a dazzling blue. Even the colors of the buildings were brighter. I wasn't quite sure I liked it. In comparison to the British landscape with its sooty gray buildings and muted inhabitants, the colors of the California landscape were harsh and garish, the people loud and rude. We had gotten used to a courtly courteous country whose residents apologized as a matter of form. After just a few days' stay in London, Bob and I caught ourselves saying, "Sorry," to each other for absolutely no reason.

But then, California. I remember holding my hands up to my face to shield myself from the light as I squinted at a couple of bedraggled palm trees in the distance. "Why, this is a desert climate!" I thought in astonishment (odd to realize it at that moment since I'd been living in California for decades.) But of course, our weather is not always reminiscent of Arizona's. In the winter when it's gray and foggy, the climate is much more like England's. And if you travel along the coast up to the town of Inverness, the rolling hills dotted with fleecy sheep and huge boulders remind you of the Scottish Highlands (which is why, of course, that it's called "Inverness.") A drive through the wine country takes you to sunny Italy. I won't discuss the rest of the state except to say that Southern California is a foreign country to me. I've been to the UK more often than I've been to Los Angeles.