It's too damn hot

It's a great puzzle that there is no opposite to a snow day. If you are reading this from somewhere that doesn't ever get snow, you don't know the wonder of an unexpected opportunity to stay home and disconnect. When there is a sudden dump of a large amount of snow, the world gets hushed and lovely and everyone stays where they are or goes for a walk to admire a world turned playful.

Why doesn't this happen in summer? Today is as hot as snow days are cold. It's a day that reminds us that we don't really have total control of our climates. It's a good day for a sprinkler and a cold drink and . . . work.

It's a work day. Because we do not have snow days in the summer. In the summer, some people are on holidays and some people are working and there is no mixing them up. We sit at our computers in too-hot offices or too-air-conditioned offices and wish we were somewhere peaceful instead. There is no summer beauty that reminds us that the whole world is covered by a single blanket, that as we work away in our little spaces we are all part of something wide and wonderful.

Until the evening. Because there will be a time, later this evening, when the kids and the dogs and the grandparents and even the rushed, cranky workers who are neither young or old - all of them will suddenly go out to catch the hint of cool in the evening breeze. And little people will stay up late, and bigger people will remember the long, long summer days when they were little.

And we will all be part of something a little bit wonderful again.

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