Welcome to Baskerville

I'm becoming a meteorologist. Like Kafka's dung beetle. One morning I looked in the mirror, there was no mistake. When you live Up Here, it's inevitable.

When you live Up Here, you're either "over the hill," which basically refers to the rest of the planet and has nothing to do with age, or "by the lake," meaning Lake Superior.

There is no other lake. Period. Lake Superior makes all other lakes look like runoff. In fact, if Lake Superior is a lake, we've gotta come up with another term for the rest of these 10,000 puddles.

It would be easier just to rename Lake Superior. There's always Gitchigami, which means "big water" in Ojibwe. Or hows about Six-Degrees-In-August Separation or The Hypothermiatic Sea or Always-Keepa-Parka-Handy.

Hows about a "Rename Lake Superior" contest. Winner gets to move to Des Moines.

But just when you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it any more, along comes One of Those Days. Not to be confused with "one of these days," which usually ends with "I'm gettin' the fuck outta here and I ain't comin' back!!"

The essential component of One of Those Days is a west wind. Here's where the meteorologist part comes in.

The first inkling that you might be in for One of Those Days occurs upon waking. Miraculously you've kicked your seventeen quilts off during the night because...here's where the miracle part comes in...you're comfortable. You're actually rather warm. You're actually rather quite warm. Which in this neck of the woods means air temperatures in excess of spit-freezing-before-it-hits-the-ground.

By the way, I'm talking June/July/August here. So we're on the same page.

Most June/July/August mornings I stagger out of bed and head straight for weatherunderground. For those not familiar with weatherunderground, it's online bootcamp for the weather-obsessed. An armchair meteorologist's training ground. In particular I'm looking for a west wind, combined with an air temperature well in excess of spit-freezing-before-it-hits-the-ground. If I find those two conditions (even at the wee hour of noon), I cancel all other activities and begin basking.

Basking on One of Those Days along the North Shore of Lake Superior trumps all other basking one might have done, might still do, might dream of doing. I'm talking ultimate basking. Quintessential basking. In part due to its rarity. Like the entire state of Texas stopping dead in its tracks from a half-inch snowfall, people Up Here go a bit wonky during basking weather. We don't know how to conduct ourselves. So we don't.

We remove the weather-stripping from our windows and actually open them. We remove our shoes. Sometimes our clothes. We wander around dumbstruck (and sometimes naked)...outside. For hours. For days. It feels like a lifetime. Like reincarnation. Like a weight has been lifted. So this is how other people live!! I must have fallen through the looking glass, and look!! here comes the sun, and it's shine-shine-shining on me!!

It doesn't take a dung beetle to know that climate change has come to the North Shore.

The good news is that us poor idiots who live Up Here are beginning to experience a phenomenon everyone else has taken for granted for millennia. Namely, Summer. With a capital S. Summer that lasts longer than a week. What a unique concept!! With each passing year, another day of basking is added to that three-page section of our calendars historically known as The-Time-of-No-Snow. And who knows? After a decade or so we might have accrued an entire month of...what was it called again? Oh yeah, Summer.

In ten years, if I'm still Here At All, I'll still be Up Here. And the first time I hear someone say "Hot enuf fer yew?", I'll know. Deep in my heart, without a doubt, I'll know. The Rapture has occurred and we've all been air-lifted to heaven. Or maybe Des Moines.