40 degrees and rain

With slight variations, this is typical weather. If you come to visit in August and decide to move here because it is so green and beautiful, remember there is a reason for that verdant glory. From November through April, you wlll get 40 degrees and rain. You can expect drier weather from July 8 through Oct.12.

But this is not the sort of rain that many of you are used to. This is not a storm that you can wait out. This is rain that drizzles as persistently,as incessantly, as unremittingly as a fifteen-year-old girl who is using tears as a weapon because you forbid her to go to a co-ed sleep-over even though everyone is doing it and she will be like a total outcast and you have ruined her life forever and she hates you. Boohoohoohoo! Boohoohoohoo! Boohoohoohoo! Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, freaking drip!

This is rain you can walk in without getting wet. Natives do not own umbrellas. Natives own Goretex and hats. (There is a reason that Oregon is not a fashion center for the world.)Natives wear warm, practical shoes. There ARE women who wear adorable little pumps to work in the rainy season, but they are likely to pronounce the state name as "Oar-gun," or to complain that they can't find a decent bagel in the city. And they are not taken seriously.

If you are prone to allergies, you might want to consider staying away all together. If things aren't blooming (Oh, rhododendron season sees booming sales in the Kleenex and antihistimine aisles!) then the molds and fungi are thriving. Right now, the hazlenuts are throwing out khaki-colored tassles of catkins. God alone knows what will pollinate them. A bee would drown.

It is not true that the state bird is the slug. The state bird is the meadowlark. The slug is the state gastropod. The banana slug is colored bright yellow and grows up to six inches in length. In the woods, we have leopard slugs that get even bigger. Think I'm kidding? Look it up! Gardeners wage constant battle with slugs. Gardeners set out saucers full of beer to bait and drown the greedy leaf eaters. They use ashes from the fireplace to draw circles of safety around each plant (the ashes combine with the slug's natural moisture to form a mild but unpleasant lye.) These techniques, though surprisingly effective, are rendered ineffective by - rain. There are baits and poisons, but people with a fondness for wild birds, pets, or children eschew the poisons because you can't guarantee that someone won't eat a poisoned slug. The greenest solution to the slug question is hand-to-hand combat. One friend takes two plastic bags into her garden in the early morning. One bag goes over her right hand while the left hand holds the other bag open and waiting. With the baggie covered hand,she picks up every slug she finds and drops them into the second bag. When she is done, she firmly seals the slug-filled baggie, wraps it in the second baggie, and drops them both into the garbage can. Another friend simply snips her slugs in half with garden shears.

Running barefoot through a dewy summer morning loses a lot of romance when you step on a slug. First, you are quite likely to slip and fall base over apex! Second, there is no solvent known to man that will thouroughly remove the icky-sticky feel of them from your skin.

The omnipresent rain is very good for complexions, though. A sky like an inverted pewter bowl doesn't permit much in the way of sun damage. And the cool moist air hydrates wonderfully. Most of the skin care companies come to the Pacific Northwest to hunt for models because (a) the girls here have smooth, gorgeous skin and (b) there is almost no modeling work out here in the hinterlands, so they'll work cheap.

All this cold rain DOES give one lots of good indoor time to knit, and lots of good opportunities to wear knitted things. I have finished the pop-up paws. Tonight, I start on orphan sweaters. Pictures to follow. Keep your heads above water!