So what’s up with old, older, old-ish, people over fifty and their fascination, or maybe it’s an outright obsession, with the weather?

When my dad retired from the Navy, my parents moved back to their home state of Delaware where, at the time, my grandmother still lived.  Almost every evening from 1985 until 2012 when my grandmother passed away, my dad, the the dutiful son, would call his mother to check on her.  Inevitably, the conversation always began with, “How’s the weather over there?”  Over there was a town about forty-five minutes away.  As a young adult, I always thought to myself, Seriously?  You don’t have anything better to talk about than the weather?  I hope that when I get old that my life doesn’t deteriorate to nothing to talk about but weather.

Perhaps this daily weather check-in was a throwback to their farming days when the weather severely impacted daily productivity.

Or, maybe it was because weather happens every day so it guaranteed a viable topic of conversation.

Whatever the reason, “back then” the whole idea of discussing whether it was 54 or 56 degrees for the high temperature, or 32% or 55% chance of rain, or how low the humidity was did not interest me one bit.

And now I’m almost sixty…

…and a regular sentence heard in our house is, “I’ll be there for dinner in just a minute.  I want to see the weather.”  (It is not me who says this.)

But, I’ll admit that I do like to know what the weather will be like the next day so I can plan what to wear to work.  The big problem with this is, however,  more often than not, the predictions by the weather forecasters are not even close to what becomes the reality of the day’s weather.  Since I have started paying attention to the weather, I realize that I chose the wrong profession way back when.  Meteorologists may be the only profession where you can consistently get “it” wrong and still be employed.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had job situations that are as forgiving?

During A Sunday brunch a few weeks ago with our “village” of close friends, people who range in age from 52 to 85, the topic of the upcoming week’s weather came up.  Eight of the nine of us at the table instinctively reached for our phones in search of the weekly forecast.  One person would offer the prediction from their phone.  Another would chime in with the fact that theirs said something completely different.  A third person would have yet another possible forecast.  Then the discussion turned to which weather apps predicted what and which ones were most accurate.  This conversation circled around for nearly a half hour.

Not only were we all honestly interested in the forecast, the debate over which phone app to trust was a serious scholarly debate.

Seriously?  You don’t have anything better to talk about than the weather?

There I was.  Right there where my dad and grandmother were every evening for all those years.  Confirmation that I am getting old.  Lol!  And just think, my dad and grandmother didn’t have phone apps or the Internet to enhance their conversations.

The ridiculous nature of this entire conversation was made patently obvious when someone chimed in saying that he uses the rock app.  The Rock app?  Yep! He said that he has a rock in his backyard.  If it’s wet then it’s raining.  If it’s not wet, then it’s not raining.  You can’t argue with empirical evidence!

Now that we have the greenhouse, plants in the yard, and seedlings outside, the weather forecast is much more interesting, and necessary, for us.  If only it was more fact than fiction!

Oh…and to further confirm that the weather is “a thing” for oldish people, I am knitting a temperature blanket this year.  This is a knitted blanket that assigns colors to various temperature ranges.  Each day, one row is knit in the color that corresponds to the day’s high temperature.  Everyday I know what the high temperature has been in my backyard.  Most days I even know exactly what time it occurred.  How do I know all this?  Because the person to whom I am married is a real weather nerd  He has a Davis Weather Station mounted on a pole in our backyard; it sends him all of the day’s stats via the Internet.

Yikes!  We have become those oldish people who are obsessed with the weather.

Oh well…at least it’s not alcohol, drugs , or porn.  LOL!