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Sunny California not so sunny

      Just over one year ago I decided to move to San Jose, CA. I was living at Pittsburgh, PA at the time and I was tired of putting up with the grey, dreary, prolonged winters that Pittsburgh is known for. A friend of mine that moved out to CA from Pittsburgh a year before me kept reassuring me that CA weather was "way better" than Pittsburgh's and that if I came out here to live I'd be more than satisfied with the weather - not to mention all the job opportunities Silicon Valley would have in my field as a graphic designer.
    I decided to take the plunge when offered a design job at a large, computer company out in Silicon Valley. I stored all my winter clothes in boxes and gave to my parents the light box I used to help me cope with the lack of sunlight during the winter months in PA. (A condition otherwise known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.) I thought that they might get good use out of it since I wouldn't need it anymore - moving to the sunny state.
    I drove 3,000 plus miles across the country - away from all my family and my friends - to sunny California.
    I arrived in San Jose on August 13, 1998. The weather was nice when I arrived - but according to the local people I talked to - the summer in California was finally just getting started due to El Nino that brought an abundance of rain to the area that lingered into the early summer months. Whew was I glad I missed that. I smiled and thought how lucky I was to have arrived after all that was over.
    Well, much to my dismay, after only being in CA for a month and a half, I was surprised to find out that California actually has different seasons - and that fall had begun to arrive in early October. I guess I pictured life out in California as something similar to the TV show "Baywatch" - with people running around on the beaches in their bathingsuits all year round - swimming in the ocean. Yeah right! It didn't take me long to discover that that is SOUTHERN California - not NORTHERN California. And that people in Northern California don't really ever swim in the ocean without wetsuits because the water is generally too cold. Great.
    The other thing I discovered that was very upsetting was the weather pattern called La Nina - that was going to make California's weather cooler than normal that winter and the east coast's weather warmer than normal. Wonderful. Agh!
    Before long I had to ask my parents to ship out a bunch of the winter clothes that I had boxed up and left back in Pennsylvania and I found myself again in long pants and sweaters when my parents were still in their shorts and tee-shirts.
    It was grey in the mornings due to the seasonal, daily, morning fog. I went into a depression and found myself purchasing yet another light box to help me cope with the winter blahs - replacing the one I had donated to my parents just a couple of months before. Of course when I told my parents this they just thought it was oh so funny. "Ha, ha" I thought.
    Surely I thought this weather can't last long. I'm in CA after all.
    January, February, March went by - still had grey mornings and no sign of spring. At this point people in California were beginning to say how unusual and unseasonably cool the weather was for this time of year. "Usually by now we would be in shorts and getting a tan." Nope - no sign of that happening anytime soon - it was still pretty cold.
    I would call home and my parents would be amazed. Well - at least it isn't snowing they would say.
    Shortly after that it snowed. The mountaintops all around the valley had white caps. First time ever in years according to my roommate who has lived in San Jose for all of his life. "Never seen anything like this," "Isn't this amazing?" people would say.
    Amazing I thought. Why did I have to witness this?
    April came along. Then May. No signs of spring - and still in long pants and sweaters. I'd call home and Mom and Dad were getting out their summer clothes - it was warming up in the east coast. "You'll have to move back to Pennsylvania to get the nice weather," they would say laughing. I was not amused.
    June came along - STILL no sign of spring - let alone summer. From what I recall summer starts back in the east coast by June - but I can't really remember for sure - my sense of proper seasons are all out of whack.
    July comes and I am pissed. STILL IN JEANS AND SWEATERS. At this point east coasters have been basking in the sun for weeks. I don't even want to call home.
    Finally a couple weeks into July - California gets summer. So much for spring. About time.
    I've been enjoying the summer over the last couple of months. It has been nice. Not too hot - we never did get the heat wave that the rest of the country suffered from for weeks. No, western California was excluded from that staying anywhere from 60-85 degrees.
    I've spent a lot of time outside these last couple of months playing some tennis and hiking around in the scenery that California is known for. I went north to Napa Valley to visit the wine country and south to the Pinnacles National Monument. I've spent some time up in San Francisco, Sausilido and Tiberon. I took a ferry out to Angel Island and I rode on a tallship on the San Francisco Bay. I visited Big Basin to see the Giant Redwood trees and drove along the coast of California from San Francisco down to Big Sur. I've visited Montery Bay, Carmel and walked the Boardwalk of Santa Cruz. I went to Yosemite and climbed up Halfdome, an 18 mile day hike. I even windsurfed on a small lake at Shoreline.
    Yes, I've seen a lot and done a lot of what California is known for and managed to have plenty of outdoor fun when the weather has been nice.
    Good thing - because fall is coming again and the grey mornings are starting. I'm going to need these good memories of the adventures I've had to get me through another winter like last years. I've already begun to use my lightbox again to keep me from getting the winter blahs. I pray that this winter won't be as long as last year's - but who knows. I've heard from a TV weather man not too long ago that this winter is supposed to be "unseasonably" colder than normal out in California.
    I'm so tired of hearing that word.
    I don't know - we shall see how it goes. I am going to continue squeezing in all the outdoor fun I can while the weather is nice. But if this whacky weather keeps up I may have to take my parent's advice eventually and move back to the east coast so I can warm up!

September 1999

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