Wednesday, July 1, 2009

weather: hot and gay?

So, I just brought the little one to kindergarten (via bike), and when I got back I was sweating. How does this happen? I mean, it isn't a strenuous ride... I'll tell you: humidity. It's abut 69 degrees (or 20 Celsius) with very little wind and a humidity of 1022 hPa- and it's 8:30 in the morning. Now, I have no idea what hPa is, but I do know as soon as I step outside I feel like I've just finished an incredibly strenuous yoga session... sweaty and tired. And I am about to partake in my almost-daily morning bike ride, which I know will leave me feeling energized, but finding motivation in this humidity is tough.
Oh, so you want to know where the "hot and gay" weather thing comes in. No, I wasn't just trying to broaden my scope of readers by luring in people casually searching "hot and gay" on Google; however, if you did so come across here- welcome. I was looking up the weather on Wetter.com (Germany's version of Weather.com, or so I presume, although one would expect it to end in .de ... some things are better left unquestioned). So, laying here sweating in my underwear in my 3rd floor room, with the fan on full blast, I began casually reading the weather, when to my surprise, I saw that the weather today will be hot and gay... What?! I declard in surprise. Upon closer examination I noticed two small dots over the U in Schwul, making it Schwül rather. Curious, I then headed to Dict.leo.org (only the coolest online translation site ever... if you only care about translating english, spanish, or french into german- of course) and discovered that Schwül is humid (something I vaguely remember hearing in the past, but never paid such close attention to. I mean, who am I to judge? Perhaps, I figured, gay was a hip new term for the weather; I mean in English one can hear it used 100 times a day on a High School campus- never once actually pertaining to someone who's enjoying a particular bout of Happiness, or who happens to be homosexual). Evidently those two dots (umlauts if you will) make a BIG difference. As to the pronunciation, I am not completely confident, especially since a few days ago, when out of the blue, the 9 year old says to me: "No, it's "ooooo" with umlauts" after I apparently mispronounced something- as I'm sure I often do. So, I think I will simply stick to saying the weather is feucht (as in clammy or damp), so as to keep myself out of any unnecessary embarrassment.
Now I'm off- to brave this clammy weather for a long, hopefully enjoyable ride.


view from my third floor room
just for fun, this is a picture of the view from my bedroom. And yes, it is a lot hotter that it looks. Don't be fooled by the pretty blue sky.


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