What is WITH this weather???!

You know, I grew up in Oregon. Southern end of the Willamette Valley, even, where the clouds like to just hang out between mountain ranges and SIT THERE. I'm used to the gray, I'm used to allergies, I even know that the Native American name for that valley translates to something like "Valley of Sickness". I went to college in Seattle, another place where clouds like to hang out. You know, like ALL WINTER (October through April, for those of you not living here). I get it. It rains here. Duh. We're close to the ocean. But it's July and it's 55 degrees at 11 in the morning. This is RIDICULOUS. It rained for almost the entire month of May. We went halfway through June before we got our first day this year where it was over 80 degrees.

Some people believe that the week or so of nice weather we get in August makes up for the rest of the year (or those random sunny days we get between storms from June through September). But even when it's warm enough outside, you go to any river or lake and spend 5 minutes in that fresh snow melt (and yes, the snow in places is still melting in June and July), and you're too numb to swim. The damp, not-quite-cold-enough winters make for fantastic breeding grounds for mold, mildew, mosquitoes, and then it'll get just sunny enough for all the swamp weeds to produce copious amounts of pollen, then rain again.

I miss being in Chicago in the summer, where you can go out at 10 pm in July and not need a coat. I miss California (and I only spent one summer there!) where the 3 days of rain sent everyone into a frenzy, even though it was still 80 degrees out. Then we didn't see another cloud for 3 months. I would take that nasty sticky humidity any day over needing a sweatshirt in the middle of the day in July.

And yes, I realize I am complaining A LOT. It doesn't help that it's cloudy right now, and my garden is still struggling to grow, and I'm STILL catching huge amounts of slugs. It doesn't help that the stupid people who sold us this house painted it GRAY. It's depressing. But writing about it helps me get it out of my system so I can go out and enjoy the 5 minutes of sunshine we'll get today.