Summer is here! Summer is here! Yay! The Weather Channel tells me that I've got a week of sunny, 80F - 90F days coming my way. It's about time.

(Although I remain amused that according to their little temperature map, San Francisco is the second-coldest place in the country today, after some place in Maine where it's only 69F.)

I had an excellent weekend.

Friday night, cadhla came over and hung out while MUSHing, almost purely so that we could get up on Saturday and watch TV.

Saturday, cadhla and I watched America's Next Top Model and Bones. Then, in a complete change of pace, ceolyn and I went to the ballet.

We saw the SF Ballet dancing "Don Quixote." It was *lovely*. We got all dressed up, drove into San Francisco, parked, wandered around looking for food (which actually sort of irritated me, in a "what kind of stupid city builds a cultural center with ballet and opera and symphony houses but no associated eating district?" kind of way), and made it to the theater right as they were starting the "get to your seats" music.

Since my only exposure to the "Don Quixote" story has been through Man of La Mancha, I was expecting something interesting but a bit dreary. Instead, we got *funny* and lighthearted, since they used a different part of the story. I think "well-done comedic ballet" has now entered my list of "things I like and wish there were more of in the world."

Saturday night we'd had plans to go clubbing (for more cultural whiplash), since silverkun has a friend in town. Sadly, the event we were planning on going to was cancelled, so we replaced "clubbing" with "beer and pizza and movies." We watched Ocean's Eleven, and then played some poker, where danea took everyone's money. I didn't play, being still irritated at how badly I'd done the *last* time we played, but I did have to switch out two decks of cards because the ones gdmusumeci bought with his chips are *cursed*. (No, really -- the inside straight always hits unless you're actively trying for it, and you periodically deal 6-6-6 onto the table, and after a while people start muttering and getting cranky.)

After going to bed *very* late on Saturday, I slept for almost all Sunday morning. Then I puttered around in the house for a while. Then I went outside. Walking out my back door was like walking into a Platonically ideal summer -- sunny and warm enough to feel like a blow. I spent much of the rest of the day doing laundry, finishing The Stand, and basking in the sunshine.

Around 6ish, silverkun G-the-friend-from-out-of-town, and ceolyn came over to get the things they hadn't had room for in the car Saturday night. ceolyn and I walked down to Starbucks, where I got an iced chai -- those of you who know how often I have ice in my drinks should now have some idea of how hot it was, still.

Shortly thereafter, gdmusumeci came home from skydiving, and we started discussing dinner, whereupon I think I gave him a heart attack by uttering the phrase "it's too hot for real food, what I really want is salad and watermelon." Fortunately, after some discussion of how we were going to handle protein in a "salad and watermelon" situation, we wound up having salad and caprese and grilled steak. Mmmm, summer food. For reference on what I consider "too hot for food," it was 86F in my house at 11:30 at night, and I went outside for my pre-bed smoke in shorts and a tank top and thought "oh, this is pleasantly cool."

Sadly, the hot weather isn't going to last -- we've got one last day of it today (wasted on a Monday, I tell you!) and then it's going to cool off tomorrow and be spring-like and cloudy for the rest of the week. Or so the weather service is telling me now. We'll see if they still say that by the end of the day. It's already nice and warm here -- shorts and tank top weather at 8:30 in the morning means "hot hot hot hot hot" by the afternoon.

Since I have no airconditioning, I predict that adb_foldem's pool will see quite a bit of me and my friends this year. (They all live in even hotter microclimates than I do, you see). What's your favorite strategy for cooling off in hot weather?

So yesterday, I was sniffly all day. I figured it was because of the new BPAL scent I was trying out, but no. It was my very standard "it's going to rain tonight or tomorrow, let's have a horrible allergy day" thing.

Now all of you have a good way to predict the Bay Area weather -- if I'm sniffly, it's going to change. (Dry to wet seems to be much worse than wet to dry, but I do get it both ways so I don't think it's just the mold.)

Today, I can breathe. It's probably going to rain again tomorrow.

(Of course now that I've told the IntarTubes about it, my magical weather predicting powers will probably go away, but as long as that results in *fewer* days where every drop of moisture not actively keeping me alive is falling out of my face somewhere, I'm okay with that.)