Seventh Reason I Came To France

It was the weather! Where I lived, northeastern Mexico, a nice day of summer was that in which the temperature did not go over 40 degrees Celsius. You can fry an egg on top of a bald man's head during some of the days of late July or August.

Here in southern France the weather is perfect...during 30 non-consecutive days of the year. The rest of the time, the days vary: some are like the weather in the movie "The Perfect Storm", others are like another movie: Kurozawa's "Dersu Uzala" (about a peasant living in Siberia, in case you missed it).

During the ENTIRE month of April, it rained! And it rained, and it rained, and it rained. I think there was a day when the sun came out...for an hour or two.

May was what nice people here call "unsettled". I call it a mess: one day of sun followed by three days of storms; then, two days of wind blowing the leaves off of our palm trees, followed by a day of hail and rain. But then one day of sun. And so forth.

June has started off well. Cool breeze and sunny outside right now. One is tempted to go to the beach but if you sit in the shade you feel cold and if you sit in the sun you get roasted. We'd better wait until July.

Perhaps the people in northeastern Mexico wish they could have some of our cool air. I wish I could bottle it and send it to them. We've had enough "cool air" to last us for a while.