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Spooky Weather
There are few activities as useless as worrying about the weather. Like that’s going to help? The only thing it might accomplish is a litany of increasingly disastrous physical and psychological issues.
It might start with a nameless anxiety and tension, then a headache. From there we could segue to ulcers, irritability and on to something really ugly. But let’s not go there.
Nevertheless, I can’t help remembering another December that started just like this one. The skies were blue and the sun shone brightly. The crab season was iffy, we’d just been through a contentious election and the country was in recession. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems like living the same month over again.
On Christmas Day the sun shone and the temperature was 60 degrees. There was a turkey in the oven and one 3-year-old had a pitted olive on every finger. Other kids were happily playing in the boxes that once held gifts that were now being ignored. Everything was nearly ready for a holiday meal and the family was gathering around like a Saturday Evening Post cover.
And then, with a slurping, gurgling sound, the well went dry and the faucet spit sandy mud. The sink was full of dishes, children need to be washed constantly, and one little fellow delighted in pulling down on the handle to watch the water swirl around the toilet bowl.
There were five children under the age of 4, and both daughter and daughter-in-law were quite obviously preparing to contribute once again to the population explosion.
When we all trooped out to the well to see if the pump was the problem, I noticed that one red-headed grandson was sitting atop a heap of manure eating worms. They do that before they’re house-broken.
I remember turning to my husband and saying, “Someday we’ll laugh about all this.” I may have been wrong. It still seems like a nightmare that took a long time to play itself out.
Perhaps it’s not the weather that has me so spooky after all. Maybe it’s the memory of being the old woman who lived in the shoe and had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
The nightmare has ended and I revel in blessed silence. Maybe this is creepy weather for December, when we really need rain, but we may as well enjoy the sun while it shines. This is, after all, what we tell visitors they’ll find here.
The trails are many and the hikers few. Evergreens smell like a celebration and the winter surf is glorious. The migrant birds are showing off and the Blooming Idiot is still blooming. That bush has now been in bloom for over eight months.
There are no children here. My olives are not fingered. The man in my life has a thick pelt and purrs. I plan to have Lucy’s Crab Shack prepare my Christmas dinner — and several others between now and then.
Life is very, very good!
Reach Inez Castor, a long-time Triplicate columnist, at inezcastor@premo
web.com .
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Opinion 
