Baby its Cold Outside

OK - I get it newspeople - its cold. I have to run my heater. My skin feels like potato chips. My hair looks like gray hay. Yup, that's some breaking news. Two weeks before Christmas and its freaking cold. When did weather start being news? I remember - it was the El Nino before the El Nino before the last El Nino. Now all El Ninos are huge news since the first time El Nino was reported on in the news.

I don't remember the year, but I remember Chris Farley in a hula skirt on Saturday Night Live announcing that "El Nino means The...Nino!" That one provided lots of news-worthy weather, although the news people reported that El Nino can be responsible for everything from extreme weather to ordinary weather depending on the relative strenth of the Nino. Whoopee.

I feel strongly that weather should only lead the news when its a real barn burner. Like Katrina. Although, to my mind the important part of that story was less the storm itself and more the lack of preparedness and follow up by the government. There was a lot of news there - just not about weather.

When my kids were little, there was a huge and devastating fire storm in the Oakland hills. I spent that day alternately reassuring my son that the fire could absolutely NOT burn all the way down Highway 880 and get to our house and checking to see if that big white house had gone over the cliff yet. It was nearly impossible for a seven year old to understand that even though the smoke and ash could float to our house, the flames were safely tucked up in the Oakland hills burning the crap out of that big white house.

This firestorm was bonafide news and I was glad they reported it. I was obsessed with that big white house. It finally went over the hill and I was able to tear myself away from the TV. You might be thinking that a really good mother would have kept the TV off so her nervous child wouldn't have to see the fire. You would be right, but in my favor, there was nothing I could do about the smoke and ash in the air and I really HAD to know about that house. I figured that since we had to see and breathe all that crud, we might as well know what was going on.

My point is that cold weather two weeks before Christmas is not news. The 40 foot waves off Oahu this week (a result of El Nino) are really newsworthy. Forty foot waves! Cool!!! Now, if it snowed here in the Bay Area and it built up to the point where I could ski to Safeway, that would be awesome. And news.

Getting your undies in a bunch because its cold in late autumn is like getting all worked up because chocolate tastes good. Or because waves wash into shore. Or because dogs are cool. Cats, too. Stuff that's supposed to be is stuff to kvetch about, not news. Like the cold. Since I've lost my insulating blubber layer, I feel the cold more intensely, but I don't want to hear about it on the news " Yes, Biff, that lady in Newark froze her ass off again today, more at 11." Please...