The Weather

One of my writing professors at Long Beach once told my class that the way they narrowed down six applicants from 200 was by reading the first paragraph of the story; if there was any mention of the weather, they set it aside.

Being from the Midwest, I am prone to have long conversations with the peeps back home about the weather. My aunt has said it's because I come from farmers whose whole lives depended on the weather. Thus, they liked to dish about it. I tend on the side of boredom during these conversations, where the temperature is relayed at least three times with a vocal exclamation mark. This is happens especially with my grandma. She obsessively watches the Weather Channel, although now that she's lost most of her hearing, she watches it on mute. This is just one of the many things I love about her. While I have always enjoyed watching the "Tropical Update," I've never watched it for seven hours consecutively.

So since this is all in my blood, this weather talk, let me tell you how lovely it's been around here lately. Russ and I spend a lot of our minimal free time outside in the backyard, trying to make it sustainable, edible, and beautiful. It feels good to pull Bermuda grass, battle earwigs (which we have in legion), and exorcise lurking alley cats and their ass faces. But Russ took it to a whole new level this weekend by providing a lunch for about 150 people that was all sustainable, edible, and beautiful. Using produce grown on Cal Poly's campus, meat from a semi-local California ranch from a local butcher, and all recyclable-compostable dishes and flatware, he threw a lunchtime gala without the usual trash bags that follow. He didn't do all this himself, of course -- he had help from volunteers, but when it all comes down, he was the hands carrying it all out, from harvesting the veggies to designing the menu to barbecuing the meat during the event. For me, it was a new way to experience from the farm to the table -- and let me tell you, it's a lot of work. Processing lettuce and cabbage is especially taxing. The snails and slugs hide inside the deepest layers and most of the leaves need to be removed in order to get at them. I have a new appreciation for farmers, especially the herb lady at the Pasadena Farmer's Market.

Russ had to plan a menu around the weather -- he was hoping for peas and beans, but because LA had a little bit of chill-n-rain over the last few weeks, they hadn't grown as fast as expected. He had to rearrange the menu at the last minute, figure out how to pull it all together without what he expected. But he was excited about that, strangely, becaues it reminded him that we're so used to having what we want available, we rarely have to rearrange in such a way. And I was struck by just how good it was to chat about the weather and not be bored.