"Changable Weather" My Sweet Bippy!

Preface: this is my 100th post on this blog. Just thought I’d mention that.

This week as I took my rent money to the top floor of my building to pay my landlady, I refused to come in because I was sick and didn't want to contaminate anyone. The landlady readily agreed and with the sympathetic Ecuadorian grandmother look (that I'm coming to appreciate here) told me that "the whole world" is sick right now, and it's because of the changeable weather.

I nodded and agreed and promised to "take care of myself" and went back to my own apartment, shaking my head and rolling my eyes at this equatorial country's opinion of "changeable weather".

People, it's May. Know how I know? Not because the grass is green again, or the trees have little leaflets or because the birds have returned from their winter homes. No, it's looked like spring here since I arrived. Last August.

I know it's May because my facebook friends keep posting pictures of their newly-spiffed-up flower gardens. Because my brother emailed me a clip of my nieces fishing at the neighbor's pond. Because people back home are starting to talk about graduation open houses. Because Dalen's playing softball. Because Dad's riding his motorcycle to work again.

Ecuador is beautiful, but this whole seasonless thing...I don't know. They tell you they have seasons here. What they mean is, sometimes it rains a lot and sometimes is rains a little. This is not enough change to constitute a season.

And a temperature change of 1.5 over the span of a month is NOT changeable weather! Examples of changeable weather, in case you, too, are unclear about this, are as follows:

-This December when I flew home for Christmas, it was -7 degrees on my first night. During my ten days at home, the temps rose to an UNSEASONABLE 60 degrees, and then dropped again to freezing before I left. This, friends, in changeable weather.

-You know what changeable weather is if, when you purchase or make your childrens' Halloween costumes, you arrange for them to be a size too big, and of lightweight material. That way, if Halloween turns out to be an 80-degree evening, they can wear just the costume. And if it's a 30-degree evening, you can put in on over their snowsuit. Changeable weather.

-Once when I was in sixth grade it snowed in May. I remember running off the playground with tiny cold snowflakes kissing my shorts-clad legs. Changeable weather.

And here are a few things that changeable weather is not, just to be extra clear:

-Changeable weather is not when the sun goes behind a cloud and the temps drop ten degrees. We call this equatorial sunlight.

-Changeable weather is not when, regularly each afternoon at 3pm the sun disappears behind a honkin' huge storm cloud and the skies proceed to dump all they've got in the way of precipitation for an hour or so, just long enough to make your walk home from school more like a wade. Annoying- yes. Changeable weather- not so much.

-And finally, changeable weather is not when the calendar has switched to a definitively springy month (such as May) and you mentally talk yourself into feeling like it's spring now. This does not cause colds, or flus or other illnesses. This does not actually change the weather. It's all in your heads, people. Wishful thinking, that.

And now, I think I'll take my sickly self off to get ready for bed. So I can face another beautiful spring morning tomorrow, with my non-weather-induced cold.

Thank you.