OmegaMom

In other words, Happy Litha!

Last night the sun set at 11:43 p.m. and it rose this morning at 4:22 a.m.  OmegaDad and I, snuggling up in bed circa 11:30, debated just how weird it was to be able to see each other, and he mentioned that the solstice was sometime within the next few days.  Lo and behold, when I pulled up the local newsrag’s web page, one of the main stories was that today was the solstice.  The claim was that it hits at 3:59 this afternoon, 12 minutes from now. 

The word "solstice" comes from the Latin for sun (sol) and stands still (sistit)–the sun stands still in the sky, halts its movement northwards, pauses, and then starts heading south.  (Okay, okay, in reality the sun isn’t doing anything, nor, really, is the Earth–it’s just an artifact of the axial tilt of our planet relative to our solar system.  It merely marks the point at which the northern point of the planet is tilted most towards the sun.)

Ah, joy!  This means summer, right?!

Well, everyone hereabouts is complaining about how wretched the weather is, how gardening is off by three weeks, and griping (just like me!) about the lack of sunlight…

And our local newspaper–with a grim joviality–pointed out that, while the summer solstice means "summer" to everyone else in the Lower 48, it means "winter is coming" to Alaskans.

Gee whillickers.  What an uplifting point of view!  Just when a naive innocent such as OmegaMom thinks "It’s time to celebrate!", here comes the uber wet-blanket, reminding me that this means in a few short months I’ll be able to bitch about how gloomy everything is.  (Not that I haven’t been doing that lately anyway, but I’m assured by Those In The Know that normally June is faboo, so hopefully any readers left by the time next June rolls around will be spared my unrelenting channeling of Eeyore.)

I assume that this jaundiced outlook on the solstice may have something to do with the fact that I could find hardly anything with "solstice" in it in the community listings on the local blatt’s web site.  (Or maybe it’s the general religious tone to the area?)  There was one hip-hop event, there was one outdoor concert.  Poof.  That’s all, folks!  On the other hand, the marketing gurus at Alaska.com claim that "Any town worth its salt has a festival, concert or race this weekend as the days reach their longest."  The only things I can find are in the first week in July.

Anyway, have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!  Because, as we all know, it’s all downhill from here.