qatarperegrine | All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon...

Alright, it may not actually be spring yet, but it's already starting to warm up here in Doha. This weekend we switched the air conditioning back on in our apartment, and Qatari men everywhere are breaking out their white thobes again. Of course, by "warm" I mean it's breaking 80 Fahrenheit, which means we still have another 25 degrees to go before it's really summer.

The heat was one of my main worries when we moved to Doha. In fact, if someone had asked me what my biggest worry was, I would have been torn between "Getting kidnapped by Al Qaeda" and "Dying of heatstroke." Happily, I've avoided both so far, and the climate has been less problematic than I imagined. There are definitely things we can't do in the summer -- say, anything that involves being outdoors during daylight -- but summertime brings other pleasures, like snorkelling in a warm ocean, and joining all our neighbors in the outdoor pool at 9:30 p.m. every night. Our goal this summer is to learn how to scuba dive, which can be done here without wetsuits.

I feel like seasons are something I'm still trying to catch onto. I grew up in a climate where average monthly high temperatures have a range of less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit -- from 55 degrees in January to 64 in August -- and where almost all the trees are coniferous, so there aren't blossoms in spring or falling leaves in the autumn. The only real seasons are "rainy" and "somewhat less rainy." It was quite a shock to move to Pittsburgh, which careens from an average high of 37 degrees in January to 85 in July, and which has the kinds of seasons I'd only read about in books: leaves falling in autumn, snow in winter, crocuses and daffodils in spring, hot summers. In many ways, in fact, Qatar's weather is less foreign to me than Pittsburgh's, but still seems strange that there are activities that can't be enjoyed year-round. I kind of miss the changelessness of coastal northern California.

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True. Even in the snow we go walking for miles every day (neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night shall keep border collies from going stir-crazy without their walkies) -- it's hard to say whether I'd rather walk in the heat here or in the snow in PA. Generally I like walking in snow, but ice is not my friend.

After my encounter with a jellyfish I would certainly prefer to dive in a thin wetsuit, but we haven't had any problems with sunburn while snorkeling. We tend not to go during the hottest part of the day, and we wear lots of waterproof sunscreen.

We seem to have lots of linguists on this blog. Let me raise an issue with the word snorkel. I think snorkel is one of the most unpoetic words i know. Twenty dollars for anyone who finds a poem with the word in it. (Googling not allowed.) I see it comes from German, whose word, schnoerkel, is even more alyrical (a word not seemingly found in my disctionary).

Here's poetry with snorkel in it. I don't remember what tome it's from. :=)

There once was was a word termed 'snorkel',
That any sane person from York'll
Tell you in oughter
Be drowned in the water.
If a linguist won't do it a dork'll.

:-D

Even with Google, the best snorkel poems I came up with were entitled Soi-Disant Soft Porn ("My love tears at the fringe / Of my snorkel jacket") and Burning a Copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover ("I snorkel through the pages / chuckling at sloppy typography"), so as far as I'm concerned, yours is the best snorkel poem on the Web.

I had a moment of excitement when I found An Ode to Snorkel, but it turned out to be (a) not a real poem, (b) about an illustrator whose nickname is Snorkel, and (c) in Dutch. Hardly a contender.

What about He Doesn't Ask For Much? ("His dungarees get kind of grungy when he's on patrol / but he says diesel fumes and snorkel dust give them character")

Gaaaaah! Words cannot describe... gaaaah!

Hmph. Us in California TRY to enjoy activities year round, but a couple of weekends ago we went to a dog show that was a trifle unpleasant what with the high winds and bucketing rain (no, not Doha rain, REAL rain. Several inches). The dogs were sliding off the wet contacts and only the really brave souls allowed their border collies to leap into their arms at the end of a run.

Now if you'll excuse me, I hear the songbirds beckon - I have to go walk the dog in the balmy sunshine. (61 degrees F, 75% humidity - a tad damp for this area still! Must be because it rained overnight.)

BTW I haven't seen any white thobes broken out here, but then I haven't seen any other colour thobes either.

Modification - can't go walk the dog, she's still asleep. Not a morning dog, is Abbey. She's flat on her back at the foot of the bed with both front paws straight up in the air.

I'll walk her when she wakes up.

Mum (materjibrail) just e-mailed me this, so I am posting it for her:

Blossoms in Eureka. Moving from the rainy season to the less rainy season. I don't know how to put this on the blog. I should experiment, but we are leaving town soon and I need to do things like vacuuming and washing clothes.

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I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that some of those "blossoms" are the heather plants we put in ten years ago. HEATHER. A plant which does best in freezing temperatures and insane amounts of rain. The fact that it's blossoming doesn't mean the rain's stopping, just that it's appreciated the recent downpours.

Just a little comment about Coastal Northern California weather...

:-)

By the way. Do you still offer something for naming the source of your title?

Good ol' Tom Lehrer and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".

So is MY rhyming that bad O Life of Rats?

All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon...

Re: scuba!!

Snorkel

I win!

Re: I win!

Re: I win!

Re: I win!

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no subject

from Mum

Re: from Mum

All the world seems in tune...