I’m pretty sure I should have been born the son of an Italian wine maker. Or perhaps an olive grower. I could see myself spending Sunday afternoons on a rough stone terrazza nibbling on marinated olives and peppers and artichoke hearts sipping a glass of wine, listening to Old World folk songs and letting the sun warm me where the wine doesn’t. Ahhhhhhhh.

Instead I have jelly beans and a leftover beer I found waaaaay back in the fridge, trying to find a spot somewhere on the 4×8 patio that is out of the wind driven rain storm, hoping the next lightning bolt stays waaaaay on the other side of that hill over there.

That’s all on me though. I couldn’t pick where I was born but I could have moved if I really wanted to. I chose to stay in the only city in America with less sunshine than Seattle. (That’s what I’ve been told. I didn’t believe it so I looked it up and they were WRONG! That particular proverbially always rain-logged Washington hamlet actually has less sun than my burgh but just barely, coming in at Number Nine of the Top Ten Cloudy Hit Parade with a 57% chance of clouds compared to our 56%. What is the number one least sunny city in the US? Juneau, Alaska. Sorry Land of the Midnight Sun dwellers. Apparently that’s not enough for the midday darkness the rest of the year.) Where was I? Oh, yeah. I stayed.

I chose to stay here where the chance of pressing my own olive oil is somewhere around the chance of me removing my own appendix. Wine making might have a little advantage, but still it’s not likely I’ll be trading in the Miata for an Alpha Romeo and riding it along a strada panoramica overlooking the Baia di Napoli. I’ll just have to keep an eye on the morning forecasts and pick those choice hours when the sun will come out and the top will go down and the drive will be just as scenic. Even if it is of the access road leading to the 27th worst commuter road in the country. And we do better than Seattle there, too. (They have the 8th worst commute. Sorry.)

Thank God I don’t have to go to work in either city. More time for olives and wine. Or jelly beans and beer. Happy Spring!

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?