Why I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Global Warming

Yet one more storm approaches

It's still raining.

I should think by now we would have grown gills and fins, and found our way down stream into the choppy gray sea. I actually stared at live-cam photos of Yosemite yesterday. The blue sky over Half Dome looked surreal, like a fantasy painting of unreal and unbearably beautiful colors.

How do we live with this constant gray? How do we summon from our own interiors the warmth and light needed to sustain life? We have no choice, but it is a constant challenge. One morning last week, I woke to the sun rising in a clear sky. It was exhilarating. I went and filled the tea kettle with water, set it on the stove to boil, and on my way back to the bedroom walked past a window only to see a heavy fog was blowing in. That relentless and endless gray stared back at me with its vacant, pitiless gaze. FOG. I wailed. I took it personally. It was blocking my sun and my blue sky. I shook my fist and cursed the outdoors, then went about the task of summoning warmth and light from memory.

We turn the sauna on when we need the extra heat to soak deeply into our bones. We bring the iPod out there, listen to tunes, and stretch out while the temperature soars. We're thinking about getting a full-spectrum light to put into the sauna, so we can have both the warmth and light that we are craving.

My older brother who lives in Virginia has been telling me how lovely the weather has been. He's been out playing lots of tennis and taking long walks on his 50 acres. He says, "Robin, I hiked in tee-shirt and shorts today. How's the weather there?" We laugh. Mine much more hysterical than his. We laugh again about how our father would have responded to the pacific northwest. He would have said, "You like this weather?" Asked with absolute incredulity. I read somewhere that Washington D.C. is the new North Carolina. What will the northwest ultimately become with these weather trends? Can I put in my dibs for the clear skies of Yosemite? Or the pleasant temps of Santa Barbara?

The weatherman said that this winter's El Nino will be bringing us moderate warming temperatures soon. I apologize to all of you, but if global warming brings us this warmth, I'm going to turn on every fossil-fuel guzzling thing we have. If you love me you'll do it too. I have a personal stake in this. The earth is my toy, here to entertain and please me. So, warm me up. Please start your engines.