Weather, Schmeather.

As soon as I started telling people I was moving to Portland, everyone was like, "Oh! You'll love it... I've been there!" or "My daughter lives there and she says it's amazing!" But inevitably after these glowing recommendations, there was a short moment of silence, followed by, "But watch out for the rain!" or "But I hear the weather is just awful." or "Make sure you take your parka and galoshes!" I was so worried, that I googled "Portland Weather" before we moved out, and found no shortage of blogs and commentaries on the horrible-ness of Portland's meteorological predicament. One lady even said that the entire winter, the whole city smelled like a wet dog so she decided to move. Yikes! Wet dog is no good.

When we got here and started meeting people, even they made comments about the weather, but it was more like this, "Oh, yeah, the weather is pretty bad. Most people can't handle it." Or, "Yeah, it's rough... new people have a really hard time." After these conversations, Justyn and I were both pretty concerned... asking ourselves, "What on earth have we done?" But luckily we got here during the amazing portion of the weather, so we just put off worrying about it until the end of October, when it was supposed to start getting bad.

October came and went, and then November, and I started wondering what all the fuss was about. It occurred to me that maybe people who live in Portland want outsiders to think it's really rough living here. There has been a huge influx of people moving to Portland, and I think the natives are getting restless. It's a scare tactic. They want people to think they're tough and strong and that they're suffering.

So, I finally called someone's bluff (namely Justyn's brother, who lives in Seattle where the weather really is horrible). I said, "Seriously. You used to call Justyn and say, 'DUDE... I haven't seen the sun in over a month.' I mean, is that really true? Does the sun really not come out at all? Or does it only come out every few days? You can be honest." After some serious stuttering and mumbling, he admitted, "Yeah, I mean, it will come out every now and then, I guess." I proceeded to ask exactly how often, and he said, "maybe once a week, or once every two weeks."

A-HA! The truth comes out! That's not so bad. There were plenty of times in Nashville where it would rain every day for a week. And it kind of sucked, but you knew the sun would come out sooner or later. After this admission, I stopped worrying about it too much. But when it came up in conversation, the natives would say, "Well, it really doesn't get bad until December." Well, it turns out that December brought a snowstorm that dumped almost 19 inches of snow in the Portland metro area, that which the locals have dubbed "Snowpocalypse", a.k.a. "Snowapalooza", a.k.a. "Arctic Blast 2008". And, I suppose I must admit that if it hadn't been so cold, all of that snow would have been rain. But, it wasn't, and that makes it okay. Because snow is wicked cool, and I feel like there isn't enough of it in my life.

Let me take a minute to comment on Portlanders and their ability to handle a winter storm. I was actually looking forward to witnessing their behavior, after living in Nashville for 20 years where the mere prediction of "a few flurries" sends everyone to their local grocery store to buy all the milk and bread they can fit into their carts. (And can I just say how stupid that is? Why on earth would you go buy 2 of the most perishable items that exist when you think you might be socked in for several days? Grab some canned goods, people!) Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest (keyword: NORTH) I thought I would finally see some people who know how to handle driving in inclement weather. But ooohhhhh no. I was so very wrong. Most of you have seen this video, as I did last year when it circulated through email. The locale? You guessed it, Portland. Had I known that, I wouldn't have expected so much from my fellow Oregonians. This video is pretty funny, too, and is from the most recent storm. To make a long story short, the whole city practically shut down, schools closed for over a week (now they're trying to figure out how to make it up), and tire chains were required on all roads, even ones that were cleared. Which explains why the roads in Portland are so bad. To make matters worse, Portland doesn't own any snowplows or salt trucks that I know of. (They don't use salt here, I guess, they use sand and gravel, which is not so fun to drive on and plus the cars in front of you throw little rocks up at your windshield. Oh, and watch out for rogue tire chains. Those sonsabitches are bad news when they come loose at 40 mph.) I heard they had to borrow plows from Washington State to get some of the roads cleared. But, I digress.

In the latest conversation I've had about the weather with a local, she confided in me that the weather really doesn't get bad until January, and now I think I'm beginning to see a pattern. It has been mostly sunny every day this week, and check out the forecast for next week:

That doesn't look like "bad" weather to me. So, I'm making a prediction. The news stations and long-time Portland residents will start saying, "You know, this winter was really mild. Normally it's a lot worse than this." I guess I can see their motivation. The weather is the only complaint I've ever heard that would prevent someone from moving here. And, if they don't have that, what do they have? If they didn't scare people off, I can just imagine how crowded it would be, because everyone really would want to live here. But I will not be fooled. Portlanders are trying to keep a big secret, and I'm not going to be a party to it.

Either that, or they're all just a bunch of sissies descended from the Wicked Witch of the West that think a little rain will melt them into a little green puddle. But, I don't think so. There are way too many dogs in this city for that to be true, and I'm pretty sure she was afraid of dogs.