Weather-Bitch Syndrome 2020 Sweeps the Eastern United States.

I was raised in Southern Cal and have lived in Colombia, New Mexico, New York, New Mexico, then California, then Spain, then California again and now the suburbs of New York.

I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about weather in Southern California. If it rained, people got into plenty of car accidents, but also celebrated the ability to don a cute rain boot or a fun umbrella. When it sleeted or hailed, we danced like princess Poppy. Perhaps because it seldom rained and it was seldom cold that people never consulted the weather. (I know I know, it rained like a mo last year in California and people complained. Don’t ruin my moment.) (I also know that it is easy to ignore the weather when you have no weather, but there was plenty of weather in Spain and New Mexico, but no weather complaints, just government complaints in Spain and alien sightings in New Mexico)

When I cohabitated with my native New Yorker husband in San Francisco, I noticed his obsession with weather. He owned special contraptions that were never installed properly, so he could always kind of know what the temperature was inside our apartment as well as on the balcony that overlooked the Bay. Every day he would say, “So what’s the weather this week?” and I would respond with… “Oh honey, you know I don’t care.” and he would be super pleased with me. This identical conversation has occurred every day for 14 years, with the exception of when we have been physically apart and I think I recall a text or two about it even then. The crazy thing is that he was obsessed with weather even before he began measuring happiness in rounds of golf.

So now we are here, in the burbs of New York… week 9? or is 45? of Quarantine and I realize that everyone around me is weather-obsessed. I hear comments like “miserable day”… “ugh its going to rain all week!” “miserable” “miserable” “miserable” and then I feel horribly out of place because I seldom share the sentiment. Of course I get cabin fever when I have been holed up with my husband, mom and kids for 5 days in a row… and this is exacerbated by hearing my husband and everyone else moan about the weather, but I am also strangely romantic about rainy days. (when I am not clinically depressed)

Perhaps this is the LBC girl in me, but the first thing that comes to mind when I think about rain is, “Oh the plants and trees will be fed and after the rain, when the sun comes out, the air will be clean for at least one hour. What’s a little acid rain between friends?”

I know this doesn’t apply to the burbs of NY. Our air is pretty clean due to the thousands of trees that abound and why do you think New York explodes with foliage in the Spring? Rain ya’ll.

Rain.

Cause I aint perfect, I’ll tell you about two times in my life when I suffered from WBS. The first was during summers in San Francisco. I hate it when Mark Twain is right. The coldest Winter I had ever experienced was every summer in San Francisco, so I retaliated against this strange microclimate by packing my Shih Tzu and my flip flops into my Mini Cooper, mounting the 5 freeway, and getting the heck out of dodge often. We also spent quite a bit of time crossing that beautiful fog-laden bridge and joining wine clubs in Napa. This post is full of #privilege. So I guess, for 7 years, I complained about being freezing in Summer.

The second time I came down with WBS was when we didn’t get real snow this Winter in New York. (little did I know that Winter was truly coming, but in Spring) When we moved to New York, I signed up for seasons. I love winter in the suburbs of New York. I get to wear my enormous @pajar boots that somehow create trompe-l’oeil of balance in my unique body shape. I also get to wear comfy leggings and sometimes the same comfy shirt everyday because the big fat cute faux-furry coat hides everything. On snow days, all expectations are erased and you have a license to cook, bake and or do nothing. Everything slows down and everything is covered in white.

So now we are all home-bound, with the exception of essential workers, who would love to have the privilege of complaining about the weather. I would like to give some advice to folks who have succumbed to WBS2020. Order some cute rain boots and a cute umbrella and if there is no lightning in sight, plug in your head phones and do some dancing in the rain OR sit on the porch or close to a window in silence and breathe. (if you have kids, tell them you have diarrhea and do this by the bathroom window. If you don’t have a bathroom window, make up another lie and sit on a porch.)

(This post does not apply to folks with seasonal affective disorder which affects more than 3 million people in the US every year according to Google. This post was not edited by anyone and was most-likely full of grammatical errors and type-o’s.

By |2020-05-18T12:40:02-04:00May 18th, 2020|

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