A friend once told me the first thing she did upon visiting a potential living place, was look for all all the free community publications she could find. In her opinion, it gave an accurate impression of local happenings, community involvement, and the overall liberal artsy-ness. I did the same when we were shopping for neighborhoods, and it proved effective at answering questions I didn’t realize I had.

Sixteen months later, I still skim these publications, for community news. One is a weekly, I retrieve from under the Mister’s car each Wednesday, and the other is a quarterly that arrives the same time as the water bill. Generally the quarterly is a recycled version of the weekly. I suspect it is an aging retiree’s pet project that allows him to write albeit with an absence of imagination, and showcase his watercolor paintings to the community.

Though informative, this publication is typically dull and laden with numerous “articles” in which varies civic organizations and elected leaders exchange thanks to one another in hopes of soliciting empty praise for themselves. It might make a person wonder why I bother opening the pages before tossing it in the recycling bin, but it supplies insight on zoning ordinances (sewer and livestock related), recycling, and hiking trails, even if the front page always reads like the minutes from a 4-H> meeting.

Imagine my astonishment when I discovered this excerpt in the town council article:

I read about the shooting last month, but the article in the respectable subscription based paper failed to mention the motive was exorcism. Gotta wonder what those kids were thinking as they waited in the car. We know what the shooter was thinking, or rather that she wasn’t.

The police responded in three minutes. While commendable, it seems the Mayor neglected to also recognize the chiropractor’s own chutzpa in this. If he hadn’t jumped on the shooter, there may have been little order for the police to restore…..unless the demons had actually escaped.

In some circles, specifically two I intersect, talking about the weather is a cover for the more serious issues which no one will be discuss because reality is either too unpleasant, too plebeian or just too fucking real.

It may be an euphemistically laden crutch or it might simply serve as an exercise in vocal resonance; nonetheless it fills the uncomfortable silence, which serves for many as a depressing disappointment of things to come, lifeless and deflated as a pricked balloon from a passed birthday. Of course there are also times when weather is nothing more than a strategic change of subject, because I’m not going to engage in a morality discussion, a political discussion, a racial discussion, or a religious debate.

Though weather is code for non-confrontational conversation in my head, it is of genuine interest to numerous males in the aforementioned circles. I mean that neither as sexist nor judgmental, just a casual observation. In rural areas, weather is a life force dictating all manner of activities for hunters, gatherers and providers.

My father-in-law was such a man. Lifelong gardner, survivor, and shoeless until the age of five or perhaps six. He supported his family operating heavy equipment, but at heart he was a man of the soil, a farmer at heart, an avid gardener and sufferer of dilemmas extension office related. He was all about fresh cabbage, citrus grown out of zone, and strawberries, tart tasting, home harvested. I was about other things, but I knew if I inquired about his interest, the conversation would continue, and he would be whole, personable, and animated in a way that makes people real, even if we find the topic of conversation non-stimulating. Seeing people, at their happiest, talking about things important to them, is a gift, for even the stodgiest of voyeurs.

Weather and I have an unbalanced, aloof relationship. I am aloof to weather’s ramifications, and weather is unbalanced and precarious like a scorned woman. I don’t do scorned women. Unless it serves a higher purpose, like empty conversation for the sake of continuity eliminating undesirable cacophonic hissing sounds. I check the stats on the weather monitor so I can engage in polite chit chat with my mother or brother-in-laws. Anything to make them comfortable and fill the requirement of polite repartee. It isn’t that I don’t want to engage in repartee, but my mind is moving beyond the moment into the next potentially stimulating opportunity….

So.

I have eluded tornados and catastrophic floodingI could say i respect the weather, but we all know the truth…I’m lucky regarding weather, whereas I’m unlucky in other ways.

Saturday, my BIL called to ask if I enjoyed the earthquake. Uh, earthquake? You mean the cheap ride at the mini golf hut? No? You mean for reals. Huh? So again, I escape unscathed with little of importance to discuss in less than polite circles.