November in December

For the first eight years we lived here, the weather ran like clockwork. Okay, some years had more rain, some had hotter summers, so had surprise flooding, but overall, I was prepared to bet my last dollar that, come the first week of November, the weather would become fall-like. I was so confident that the weather wouod reliably change in November that one day I said to David Mexicali, "you watch, come November, the weather will change." And lo and behold it did.

I think we were both impressed with my weather forecasting skills. And that should have reminded me, that he/she who gloats first .... ultimately gets a reminder from the heavens above that we have no control over our weather destiny.

This October 31st I started to mentally prepare for the change of season that was en route the coming week. Good bye flip flops in the morning. Get out the lightweight sweaters for late afternoons. Fall in Israel was about to begin. And I was excited because I love fall here. Cool mornings, but midday warmth, followed by cool evenings. Except this year it didn't happen that way.

Instead of November gradually preparing us for what I now consider the bloody cold of an Israeli winter (14 C/X F), God choose to skip my beloved transition phase and go straight into the rain and cold of December -- IN NOVEMBER!!!

I had to avoid David for a month on the off chance that he remembered my over-confident forecast from the previous year. And worse than that, I had to find my rain boots and my heavy sweaters a month earlier than anticipated. Oh the pain of it all. Yael's new rain boots weren't scheduled to arrive until the end of the month, with my sister. I'm telling you, life was upside down.

I had guests arriving from Canada at the end of the month and they were all expecting the great weather I had been bragging about for years.

And then something strange happened. As the last week of November arrived, so did the November weather. The sun shone, the days were warm. And it continued through most of December, which made me realize, November did come, but it was lost in December.