Leavitt-y
by Josie Leavitt

I woke up the other morning and it started to rain – well to pour, actually. My first thought wasn’t, “Oh, I should probably close a window or two.” It was, “Was it supposed to rain today?” Does it matter what I thought it was supposed to do? I stood there in my kitchen watching the now sideways rain stream in the kitchen window while I tried to remember what the weather guy said the night before. “Slight chance of showers after 2 a.m.” Did he say anything about rain so heavy it would be re-washing my dishes in the sink? Not that I could recall.
“Was it supposed to?” goes hand in hand with “They said,” like we’re casting blame on Mother Nature. You’d think after all my years of listening to the weather, I’d know that they can’t predict nature. It’s always “they,” we never name them; it’s some group of guys in a room with no windows that just never seem to get it right. Maybe if the weather hub at the news actually had windows, they’d be able to do it better. Now they have to send the poor guys up to the roof in the blizzard just to let us know what’s happening out there. I’ve noticed now, as they leap into the 21st century, weathermen love to let us know that they’ve got the best Doppler radar around. It’s gone from doppler radar, to super Doppler, to triple Doppler and I noticed on a recent trip to Los Angeles, mega super Dopplae radar. As much as I think these names are ridiculous, I will troll the internet to find the weather site whose Doppler is strong enough that I can see thunderstorm cells over my street.
Yet I still naively believe them. And I’ve found a new disturbing thing that’s happening to me. As I get older I’ll repeat any scary forecast to just about anyone who’ll listen. Come to the bookstore in winter and I’ll be the one saying, “No, they said we’re going to have eight to twelve inches of snow, with a break in between for an hour and a half of icing and then another four inches.” If the weather forecast I’m quoting (usually the National Weather Service – you know, the folks who issue the warnings, so you’ve got to figure they’re right) is wrong, suddenly I’m cast as the Weather Voice of Doom; I become the unreliable weather repeater. I lose all credibility because these guys are never right. My partner looks at me like I’m crazy and she’s always saying the next day, “See, not even three inches. And you’re battening down the hatches.”
The other thing about weather and Vermonters I’ve never understood is the need to rush to the market when there’s a forecast of one big snowfall. Surely, we all have food at home. Weren’t most of us planning to eat at home that very night and the next morning? So why is it on the afternoon of a predicted heavy snowstorm the Shelburne Market is so crowded I feel like it’s Thanksgiving?
I’m not making any predictions, but I think it’ll be partly cloudy most days this summer with a chance of showers and a guarantee that on my day off it’s going to rain.