Send in the Clouds

Our ordinarily laconic Burmese has taken to padding around the house at all hours, caterwauling inconsolably. This annoyed me until, having determined that her plentiful foodstuffs and accommodations were in order, I realized what was really bothering her: She can’t wait for winter. Neither can I.

Every morning I peek out the window, like my grandfather and his grandfather, to “check on the weather.” There isn’t any. Nor is there any tomorrow. Or the next day. Surreal perfection soon degenerates into hallucination: The morning sun is a giant “Pretty Woman”-era Julia Roberts bobbing on the horizon, all toothy and tousled, chirping: “Hey! GREAT day!”

This year has been particularly monotonous weather-wise, what with the marine layer no-showing in June and the monsoonal thunderstorms in August lingering just over the San Gabriels. So here we are, hoping Malibu won’t burn, waiting, to corrupt Jim Morrison, for the rain.

Winter in L.A., of course, is nothing like winter in Chicago, whence I came, or winter in New York, whence I came after that. Winter in the Midwest is appalling. It is endured, period, except for Christmas Day and moments of contrived zaniness, such as drunkenly making angels in freshly fallen snow with your girlfriend.

In the Midwest, you can’t wait for summer because winter, with the bare-branched, frost-heave autumn leading into it and the interminable weak-sunned pseudo-spring leading out of it, is the prevailing condition nine months of the year. Also, summer weather there is manic-depressive in the extreme, with raging mood swings that, if occasionally life-threatening (twister!), are endlessly entertaining.

In Los Angeles, most of the year is measured in peerless sunshine, not sodden, freezing misery. L.A. weather has almost none of what psychologists call “affect”--it’s Midwest weather after extensive therapy. It’s perfectly sane; and, after six months or so, perfectly, stupefyingly, boring. As William Faulkner noted during his turn as a contract screenwriter here: “Nothing ever happens and after a while a couple of leaves fall off a tree and then it’ll be another year.”

All of which has led me to a meteorological cognitive dissonance best expressed with really bad grammar: I now can’t wait for winter the way I used to couldn’t wait for summer.

And why not? Winter in L.A. is foggy mornings and bruised clouds shrouding the hills; the sexual musk of night-blooming jasmine gushing through your sunroof; fiery pastas and Chiantis scarfed under the warmth of those brushed-aluminum gas heaters; afternoons cheerfully frittered away watching helicopter footage of Action News-ready mini-catastrophes while bands of rain roll off the Pacific and pound the roof over your head with biblical fury; and, with any luck, a certain Burmese--having completed her Blanche DuBois phase--sprawled in front of the fire, happy at last.