Summer Or BUST

I officially have Alaskan Fever. I didn't understand how people could go so nuts about a little summertime the first few times I watched it come around -- all the women skankin' out (even the ones who REALLY OUGHTN'T), everybody and their dog fighting for camping spots, etc -- but I get it now. I mean, I understood intellectually that it's cold and dark here for much of the year and that good weather would excite these poor fools...Both condescending AND short of the truth. Warm, sunny weather is nice, and variety is nice - but when temperatures above the thirties meet both of those criterion, it becomes AMAZING.

For me it's also mixed up with homesickness/ongoing culture shock - what do you mean I can't sleep outside? And why can't I wear slippers*? I miss the kinds of clothes we wear in the tropics - light, breathing fabrics in bright colors, things that look good with volcanic dirt ground into them, loose-under-the-arm tank tops and slippahs, the Hawaiian plastic or rubber slipper. Now I can only wear them when I visit home, or at the peak of summer. Most folk up here get so stoked that they jump the gun, and start wearing shorts in March. For non-Alaskans, trust me that's Spartan-level madness. There's still snow on the ground. These people are just so pathetically happy that it's not in the single-digits anymore that they lose their minds. And then their full-length pants.

Image c/o Amazon.com. But still MINE.

There are about three weeks of really warm weather here, and it usually rains for at least half of it. Of course, the kama'aina version of "really warm" is eighties or above, so don't be too sad for us; global warming has done wonders for Alaska. And I love. LOVE. LOVE rain, so in fact don't bother to feel bad for me at all. I recently bought a fancy-schmancy umbrella in anticipation of the upcoming showers n' flowers...Bearing in mind last summer, in which there were only two sunny days all summer. Oh, the moaning and the bitching that rose from my new city, but I loved it. I just needed this awesome umbrella to help me through the dripping underbrush. I want to camp, and go for long walks, and just generally get out for an airing...nobody said I needed to be DRY. Puddles, beware!
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*In AK they've informed me that "slippers" are those things you wear indoors to keep your feet warm. I have informed them right back that trust me, those are house shoes. Or carpet slippers if you're British. Or maybe just socks. They have gone on to inform me that what I call slippers are actually "flip-flops." I then inform them that they should by that logic call dogs "woof-barks" and get on the short bus with their precious simplistic worldview.
...Don't even get me started on people calling them "thongs."