All Summer In A Day

[darkemeralds]

Does anyone remember that story by Ray Bradbury?

All summer in a day. The sun has been out for, like, two hours since the middle of May, and I've been stuck in the World's Tallest Basement for most of those moments.

It's too rainy to start work on my leaking mudroom roof. It's too rainy to garden. It's too rainy to get out of fucking bed in the morning. Hell, it's almost too rainy for me to ride my bike. Almost.

I take back everything I ever said about not minding the rain. This is driving me bugshit crazy.

Comments

[bluemeridian]

You and me both, even if I am on the other side of the country. Although I will say that today it's pretending to be sunny. It's just either raining or too hot to breathe. Ugh.

[darkemeralds]

My cubicle neighbor right this minute is saying to someone, "Well, the lettuce looks really good, but I can't get to it without sinking up to my ankles in mud."

I suspect you can relate.

[bluemeridian]

I really can, although we've finally had enough dry weather that I was able to get into the garden today!

[twistedchick]

I remember it. It has stuck with me for decades.

[darkemeralds]

Yes! It was such a haunting story. I'm glad I didn't imagine that.

The title comes back to me often in these extended and extremely wet springs we've been getting the last few years in the PNW.

[donutsweeper]

I read that story when I was a kid, elementary school sometime *shudders* Sorry about the rain, I hope the sun peeks through soon!

[darkemeralds]

As I'm thinking about it and recalling its details to mind now (thanks to Wikipedia), I'm realizing that it resonated because of its superficial premise about the rarity of sunshine, but also because it was about bullying, about an outsider being helplessly and carelessly robbed of something unutterably precious, because it's about a girl rather than a boy, and it takes place on Venus.

There was a LOT in that story, wasn't there?

[donutsweeper]

That's Ray Bradbury for you, and scifi written the way it was supposed to be written. Layers upon layers and interesting social commentary woven into a good story.

[darkemeralds]

Happy Donut Day, by the way. If I weren't all gluten free and stuff now, I'd have totally gone to Voodoo Donuts and had one to celebrate.

[donutsweeper]

Oooh, I've seen Voodoo Donuts on various travel and food shows. Sometime I have to find an excuse to go to Portland to try them. There are, sadly, no donut places around here, but thanks!

[darkemeralds]

Voodoo Doughnut (I had to check the spelling) makes the most over the top, disgustingly wonderful, decadent, after-the-bars-close doughnuts you can imagine. They have Tang doughnuts. FrootLoops doughnuts. bacon maple bars...well, it's pretty eye-popping.

[donutsweeper]

this one: Old Dirty Bastard: Raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreo’s and peanut butter! would be my undoing. Chocolate + peanut butter is my favorite dessert combo ever.

[darkemeralds]

It would be anyone's undoing who actually ate one of the things. I had one Voodoo donut, once--can't remember which, might've been the Froot Loops one--and nearly dropped into a sugar coma.

I think you have to be high on weed or drunk on tequila to really appreciate them.

[donutsweeper]

bwhahaha, probably! They are certainly extreme! Although, the last time I was in NY I had a Dunkin' Donut that was PB filled with chocolate icing and it was the best thing I'd eaten in ages. I stopped on the way to the airport and bought all they had of that kind (only 5, dang it) to take home with me to share.

[sara]

Right there with you. My kid said, yesterday, "When is it gonna be summer?" and I said, "This is it! This is what it's like, this year!"

We still have the heat on. IDEK.

[darkemeralds]

IKR?? I keep turning mine off and thinking, okay, that's it, then having to turn it back on, mostly because I don't want mildew crawling up all my walls. Geez.

[cat63]

Sorry you're having so much rain - you can send some over here if you like, my rain barrels could do with a top-up :-)

I remember the story too - so sad :-(

[darkemeralds]

Sunshine today! At last! Not a cloud in the sky. It's so wonderful.

[cat63]

Yay! Meanwhile we're promised rain for tomorrow here - possibly with attendant thunder and lighting - I'll be over here hiding under the table in that case :-)

[kis]

I remember the movie.

Meanwhile it's BAKING here in Glasgow. *smug*

[darkemeralds]

I didn't know it had ever been made into a movie. Geez, the story was less than 2000 words. That must have been some padding they did.

I've been reading about high temps and an early summer in the UK. Are you uncomfortably hot?

The sun has finally come out here and I expect we'll begin to bake now too. Sigh. I don't normally bitch about the rain because I have such a strong preference for cool weather, and I dread the heat. It just got to be a bit much after several unbroken weeks.

Today the transition to summer has begun, with clear blue skies and a forecast high for the coming week of just about room temperature, so that's perfect.

[kis]

IIRC it was only about 15-20 mins long. A B movie, back in the days when you got TWO films for your money.

Yeah, it's pretty hot here but not as bad as in London. copper4akiss had a work's garden party yesterday and had to lie down with frozen veg strapped to her forehead for 3 hours when she got home!

[darkemeralds]

Oh dear! That image makes me laugh though. Poor C4aK. Mark at I Bike London had some lovely photos of Londoners out on bikes in the summer weather and I commented that it looked like San Diego with cobbles.

from Karen

[(Anonymous)]

I remember that story...it had a huge impact on me, as did the whole of Illustrated Man, the collection of RB stories I read when a teenager. The force of those stories has never left me.

Re: from Karen

[darkemeralds]

I read Bradbury when I was young enough--maybe 12 or 13--to have no context for it, no sense of what science fiction had been, or was "supposed" to be. I didn't fully understand it, and so it had a haunting quality, as life does at that age. It has always haunted me, in that eerie, wonderful way that gets lost once full intellectual and critical faculties come online a little later in life.