Rain, Pistachios, and the Essence of Laziness

If you want to know what the weather in the greater Seattle area is like this time of year just go stand under your shower with the lights off. I know there is no point in complaining, this happens every year and every year we live through it and in fact start to ignore it and then one day it is sunny and warm and lush and everyone is all smiles and hugs and it’s like the rain never even existed expect to unobtrusively water all the wonderful greenery around. It’s like all that greenery gives off some sort of “forgetting” spell and everyone says it’s so worth it and it wasn’t really that bad anyway. Kind of like giving birth actually. Except I remember giving birth and I remember the dark, dreary rain, though I wish I didn’t care.  I wish I were the type of person who did not look outside when deciding if I want to take a walk or run or to stay indoors, but I am, unfortunately, a lover of dry warmth. Not that I would complain to the natives here, as they are completely incredulous that one would alter plans because of some piddling rain. It’s just rain they’d say under REI gortex as they biked on over to the nearest trail to hike. Before moving here I really considered myself an outdoors person, but now I know better, there are real outdoors poeple here, ones that actually look forward to camping and don’t mind not-warm not-dry weather and wear clothes that at any moment will facilitate a jaunt of a nearby mountain. I’m more of the really-like-to-be-outside-when-it-is-nice kind of outdoor person, which doesn’t count for much here. I can’t help it though, the rain makes me feel like staying home, being cozy, doing warm things like baking or else just being lazy. If you have had a lazy day I’m about to make you feel like a champion of productivity, because I do believe I summit-ed some kind of lazy peak today. After making it the grocery store this morning, I was moving food around the kitchen and filled up our ever disappearing pistachio jar with fresh ones when I spent a good five minutes moving the nuts around to find pistachios that had fallen out of their shell. It feels like such a bonus to find those that I just couldn’t stop~ so much salty goodness and I don’t even have to open the shells, awesome! Even if it isn’t the rain making me this lazy, the drastic difference in sunlight between now and one month ago is enough to have me lying in bed in the mornings until the last possible moment. I finally got some St.John’s Wort this past week~ it has seen me through about a decade of winters now. I have also been splashing myself with oragne essential oil which is a ‘happy’ scent and it reminds me that good things do come in winter too~ like satsumas. I’m ready for something orange, round and bright, and though I’d prefer the sun, I’ll settle for a satsuma. If only there weren’t that cumbersome peel…