Friday, May 23, 2008

Rainy Day Expression Lesson

Welcome to sunny SoCal...on a gray, rainy day. Cold. Did I forget to mention cold? I'm not against rain. Rain is good; it washes my car and helps save my lawn (or would if I had one). My grandfather always said the same thing if we happened to speak on a rainy day, "We could use some rain, li'l girl." It didn't matter if you were 3 or 43, female relative younger than Pa-pa - "li'l girl". As far as that goes, the comment came when the grass was dying of dehydration and when we were ankle-deep in water on the lawn (he had a lawn).

To end that ramble, I'll state again: rain is good. Cold rain, on the other hand is just plain mean, especially by the beach. I liked rain in Panama. Of course, I was 6 and probably liked lots of things that annoy me now, but that's not the point. Before I moved here, I would never have thought to use "cold, rainy SoCal" in a sentence. You know, "It never rains in sunny...." The advertisements (TV, movies, songs, etc.) don't teach a couple of local expressions that I had to learn after I moved here.

"May Gray". The term pretty much speaks for itself. There's no sunshine at the beach for a good chunk of the day, and when it does manage to peek out, you never know when it will disappear. Those of us who dare to venture away from the coast during the day can actually see and feel the difference. It's like a wall across the highway...whoom...you have just left May Gray (sometimes). Of course, we really appreciate crossing the wall coming home when "inland" is 10 degrees hotter.

"June Gloom". Follows May Gray and is basically the same phenomena. Nobody puts these terms in the travel brochures, though. It's kind of a sad feeling passing by the beach watching people, visitors, try to enjoy the sunless sand and cold surf. "We paid to be here and we're damned well going to enjoy it!"

I don't know why I wrote this post. Have another brew! Maybe I'll make more sense after we've both had a drink.

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