It’s official. I’m boycotting this hurricane season.

First of all, I refuse to acknowledge the concept of a hurricane season. Football has a season. Everything is scheduled in advance– you know when it starts, when it ends, and what time the games all start. People’s jobs (not to mention billions in advertising  revenue) depend on it. I wonder how long the commissioner of any major sports league would last, if, as he announced the commencement of the season, he admitted that he wasn’t sure how many games were on the schedule, and that the starting times were still up in the air, but that we should all remain vigilant and be prepared in case one broke out? It wouldn’t be pretty.

Obviously, I don’t object to being informed of the fact that the summer months are those condusive to the formation of hurricanes. I do think, however, that we’ve all grasped that bit of information at this point. I don’t even mind being prodded with an occasional “Summer is here and the time is right for panicking in the streets” newspaper pullout; just stop calling it a season, ok? Because when I hear the incessant “Hurricane season is here–are you ready?” sirens going off, it makes me want to grab a schedule to see exactly when the hurricane is going to be in town so I can make plans to go away for its duration. 

 Don’t get me wrong, by no means am I one of those people who denies the threat. You know, those prone to ”Oh, we’ll never get hit”, ”We always dodge the bullet” and other such proclamations. I fully understand that living as we do on a peninsula sticking out into a broiling body of water, and with many of our cities being about as high above sea level as the average shag-pile rug,  there’s always the chance that a major storm system might come to kick our backsides about. There’s a difference though, between understanding and accepting the risk, and living in a perpetually heightened state of alert and continual fear of it.

Unfortunately, unless you avoid the mainstream media, you don’t have much of a choice. Turn on the local news between June and November and there’s an excellent chance that you’ll be regaled with the hurricane slogan du jour. It used to be a simple ”Are you prepared if the big one hits?” or a variation thereof, but recently, the tone of these catchphrases has taken on an altogether more menacing tone. The current mantra of the moment – “It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when” – dispenses with the idea of  cautioning us about the possibility of a hurricane; warning us instead, of the inevitability of a strike.

 To drive the point home, salivating television reporters will even show us the tracking charts of last summer’s storms compiled into one, with each storm track sporting a different colour.  Looking at this mass of squiggly lines superimposed over each other is a bit of a horror show. It’s like the combined anxiety of last year’s storm plotting, all rolled into one crazy maze of highlighter ink. The implied message would appear to be “See how lucky you  were not to have one of those squiggly lines run through your city name last year?” You’re left wondering how much longer this good fortune can continue.

It’s maddening, to me, that so many of us often appear to be living for that moment in late fall where we all breathe a collective sigh of relief at making it through another perilous summer unscathed, so that we can actually enjoy living our little lives again. Sure, the relief is palpable, but experiencing it year after year just wears on you. This feeling that you’ve once again narrowly escaped devastation by the skin of your teeth is not entirely comforting, especially since it’s usually accompanied by the disquieting thought that your luck could indeed run out at any time.

It never used to be like this. It used to be that dangerous weather had to actually exist before it became newsworthy. Now, even the potential for nasty storm formation is delivered to us at regular intervals via ubiquitous “Tropical Weather Updates”. Shouldn’t these alarmist bulletins really be reserved for a serious and impending situation? Certainly, if a category 4 hurricane was indeed making a beeline for us, I’d have no objection to an update along the lines of ” Attention! All of you silly buggers living in Florida - a huge and vengeful hurricane with a deceptively docile name is approaching your soon-to-be-altered coastline, and unless you’re supremely confident in your ability to tread water for the next three weeks or so, you might want pack your bags and go visit the more sensible members of your family still living in more temperate climes.”

What I do object to, however, is a tropical weather update (complete with its own logo)  where the presenter looks at the camera and half-apologetically says “Well, it’s pretty quiet out there at the moment…but a couple of clouds have been spotted off the coast of west Africa, and that’s where killer hurricanes are often spawned, so don’t let your guard down…”. If there’s no tropical weather news to report, why on earth are they airing the segment? 

I know that scare tactics sell newspapers and boost TV ratings and all that, but I’m really sick of living in fear for six months of the year. So, I’m done with it. This means that I’ll no longer be obsessing over weather forecasts updating me on the progress of a storm system that’s thousands of miles away in the eastern Atlantic, even if it is showing signs that it may well organise and set a course directly for my house. Even if a storm does form somewhere in the Atlantic, I’ll not be checking hurricane forecast advisories every fifteen minutes or so, in order to hear the latest wind shear gossip,  steering current dicussions, and other meteorological concepts beyond my comprehension and control.

What I will be doing, is what I should be doing during the summer months:  I’ll be hacking away at the rampantly growing shrubs and vines that, emboldened by the summer rains, are threatening to envelop my house.  Then, after retreating to the Great Indoors for intravenous hydration,  I’ll be surveying Florida’s famed fauna from behind insulated glass. There, I’ll contemplate the cruel folly of Florida gardening, where the full beauteous bloom of your landscape occurs in the grip of summer’s cauldron, retreating into drab dormancy as soon as winter’s pleasant temperatures allow you to actually languish outdoors.

Yes, I shall begin to ponder this incongruity this very evening, with a perfumy, German hefeweizen, or perhaps a tart Belgian Saison ale for company; safe in the knowledge that English Premier League football kicks off in less than a month.  The date and time of the first match and all the matchups thereafter has already been announced (It’s not a matter of if,  but a matter of when, apparently.)

Ah, the arrival of world-class summer brews, and the world’s most beautiful game. It’s comforting to know there are some things you can rely on.  Here’s to the season!

It looks like we’ll be staying here in Florida for a while. This time last year, there was a hopeful For Sale sign in the front yard, and the wife and I were busy planning our big escape to Colorado. Even as the housing market began its tailspin, it seemed quite possible that we’d make out quite handsomely by selling our house. So much for optimistic thinking.

With the national and local media continuing to bombard us with reports on how property values are plunging on what seems like an hourly basis, and housing inventory duly piling up, the idea of selling at anything remotely resembling a profit seems laughable. Not that I’m laughing of course. Why would I? Another insufferable and oppressive Florida summer is just around the corner, and I’ve barely recovered from the last one.

When I abandoned the UK some twenty years ago, one of the main motivations was to escape the dour and depressing climate. Moving to the Sunshine State seemed like the perfect antidote, which it indeed was, at first. At this point though, it’s starting to look (and feel) like overkill. Sunshine is all well and good if the temperatures are in the 60s and 70s, but when the miserably humid summer season hits, and even the overnight lows often hover around the 80 degree mark, the blazing daytime sun just adds insult to injury.

Every year I question whether or not I can take another hateful Florida summer, and here we are, in April, and we’re already well into into air conditioning season. This is inhumane.

They say that misery loves company, and I wouldn’t mind it as much if I seemed to have any. The thing is, most people I see, seem to be so used to this cauldron-like climate, that any reprieve from it, no matter how fleeting, usually results in a mass over-reaction in the form of clothes layering.

A couple of weeks ago, after a week or so of hot, muggy weather, we had what was probably the last gasp of cool air before the soggy grip of summer truly takes hold. Daytime highs were an enchanting 68 degrees or so; skies were crystal blue, and incredibly, overnight lows dropped to around 50 degrees. In short, it was as beautiful a day as I can remember. I was able to leave the house dressed in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt without feeling overdressed; I was so happy, I think I may have broken into a skip on several occasions.

Then I started to notice all of the overcoats, sweaters and hats on display. I even spied one poor soul wearing gloves; a sight so perplexing and, well, annoying, that I actually accosted him and begged him for an explanation. He told me that he was freezing. Prying further, I asked him from whence he originally came. I was half hoping that he’d at least claim native status, which might have helped explain his hyper-sensitivity to the temperature change. Instead he hit me with a stunner– Ohio.

Ohio? How can this be? Shouldn’t this be downright balmy for an Ohioan? It’s all beginning to feel like a conspiracy to me. Even the weathermen seem to be in on it. Any excursion from a cauldron-like forecast is often accompanied by what almost sounds  like an apology of sorts; a meek Don’t worry, things will warm up for the weekend sort of comment, which makes my heart sink further.

Does no one else feel this anguish? My brother-in-law and his family, out in Boulder, Colorado, certainly don’t. They’re  sitting around in their arid paradise, dressed in sweatshirts as they plan refreshing weekend getaways to the slopes.

Meanwhile, I’m eyeing recipes for gazpacho, and other dishes I don’t really like that much, but will gamely endure, mainly because I can prepare them without turning on the stove. Having the oven on pre-heat and a couple of pans bubbling on the stove-top when you’re already sweating handily, is a sure-fire recipe for anxiety, stress and heatstroke. I know this, because I did it last night, and as a consequence, it’s ice cream for dinner tonight.

I actually became aware of the American fascination with ice within minutes of my arrival on these shores. For some first-time visitors to the US, their first wide-eyed observation of American culture may involve the size of some of the vehicles being driven on the roads; for others it might be the rampant cheerfulness and often unnerving enthusiasm of salespeople in retail establishments here. For me, it was the staggering amount of ice cubes that I witnessed being crammed into customers’ glasses in the airport bar.

Watching the bartender thrust a tall tumbler into a vast ice chest, and pulling it out full to the brim, I couldn’t help but wonder where the cola was supposed to go. I mean, it was obviously a great deal for the establishment, since they were charging a couple of dollars for what amounted to a thimble-sized serving, but what struck me was that there appeared to be nothing resembling a complaint from any of the customers.

I soon came to realise that this is because, by and large, Americans love their beverages cold. Very, very cold. In fact, if their water and soft drinks aren’t served to them at a temperature entirely suitable for the safe transportation of harvested organs, they become ripe for an emotional meltdown.

Even more alarming, in my view, is the fact that this colder is better routine includes beer. As such, it is commonplace to see drinking establishments proudly trumpeting, via the ubiquitous Coldest Beer In Town signs, not the quality of their beer, so much as its serving temperature. These are no hollow promises either; any colder, and you’d be in beer on a stick territory. And to further numb your taste buds (arguably, not a bad idea considering some of the mass-produced swill often found masquerading as beer these days) the beverages will often be served in a frosty mug plucked from a freezer (presumably just in case almost frozen beer is not quite cold enough for you.)

Refusing one of these frigid mugs can be a little tricky. Often, the server cannot comprehend a request for a room-temperature glass, and will give you the old raised eyebrow look, with the implied question “Why on earth would you want a room-temperature glass when we have a freezer full of ice-covered ones at the ready?” A snappy “Because I actually like the taste of beer” or some such retort might momentarily make you feel better, but it usually only results in assorted waitstaff peering from the shadows, nudging each other and motioning towards the heretic at table five who has the temerity to refuse a frozen drinking vessel.

Of course, if you really want to ruffle some feathers, you can always order two bottles of ale at once, explaining that while you’re willing, due to time constraints, to quaff the first one as is, and deal with the accompanying novocaine-like effects of the over-chilled ale on your throat, you’d like to have the second one sit for a while, and warm up to something approaching optimum serving temperature, so that you can actually taste the quality hops, barley and malt that you’re paying good money for. Be warned though, that this may lead to a uncomfortable conversation with the server, and possibly even the manager, who will inevitably hit you with the old standby, “So, why do you drink your beer warm in the UK ?”

Although I don’t ever recall thinking of the beer stored in damp 55-degree cellars in northern England, as warm, I suppose it’s all relative, conditioned as we all are, by our own culture. Spare a thought then, for the poor unsuspecting American tourist as he visits a pub in old Blighty, and try to imagine his shock as he realises that the tiny ice bucket perched atop the bar has not been duly assigned to his cocktail alone, but is actually intended for the use of the entire pub. This is, of course, great fun for the locals. They know that there are only about a hundred or so ice cubes in the entire British Isles at any given moment, so it’s almost inevitable that another Yank’s quest for ice will end in tears.

Understandably, this Stateside fetish for the frozen has resulted in craziness like the ice-brewed beer fad, in which the manufacturer simply adds the word Ice to the brand name in order to make it more enticing. Then, of course, there’s the iced-coffee drink phenomenon, where perfectly fine coffee blends are frozen into submission. Iced tea, I won’t discuss; it’s reprehensible and should be outlawed.

It’s all enough to make me wonder about how this national obsession might be exploited, for both positive and ill gain. In the case of the latter, one can only hope that terrorists don’t figure out that rather than attempting to bomb our airports or bring down our planes, they’re probably better off working on sabotaging refrigeration systems nationwide. One can only imagine the carnage.

At my current place of employment, the recent malfunction of the lunch-room ice maker offered a glimpse into the kind of pandemonium we could expect in the event of such a catastrophe. Supervisors were seen holding spontaneous meetings that served as updates on the repair schedule, as well as morale boosts for dejected, and occasionally near-delirious office workers who were no longer able to pour their already chilled, vending machine-dispensed sodas over cups already full of ice cubes. The poor dears.

The next day, several workers even brought in their own personal coolers with their own ferociously guarded, personal supplies of ice. Amid ever-increasing murmurings of discontent among the troops, one particularly gallant supervisor set off on a reconnaissance mission and was greeted with tumultuous applause and a near-mob scene when he returned with a dolly loaded with two oversized coolers full of ice. It was almost like the entire company was functioning in some sort of emergency mode. It was really all quite surreal.

On a rather more positive note, I wonder if Al Gore’s award-winning alarmism might be more successful in instilling a greater sense of urgency in the general population, if rather than just warning us of devastating coastal flooding in the event of melting polar caps, he were to somehow equate such a catastrophe with an impending, crippling ice cube shortage. I have to imagine that the duly threatened and desperate citizenry would then rise to the challenge of attempting to lessen their dependence on those damned fossil fuels. I rather believe that they’d be dumping their Hummers left, right and centre, in favour of fuel-efficient transportation. Some of them might even go so far as riding bicycles to work.

Now, that… would be the coolest.