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| George Hamilton Tanning |
I like to think that I don’t get the winter blahs but what would I know? I spent the first 18 years of my life in San Diego and the most recent 21 of them in Sacramento (which actually often clocks more sunshine than San Diego due to the absence of coastal fog). In between I did 4 years in Portland, OR, 3 in Buffalo, NY and 9 in Washington, DC.
My freshman year of college in Portland I counted 48 consecutive days of major rain which unfortunately coincided with some reading of Sylvia Plath. By day 39 I remember dressing in black a lot and pressing my face up against windows. This wasn’t anything I’d ever really been led to do in San Diego. Sometimes I went to the beach really late in the day though to avoid a sunburn (heresy in a time of George Hamilton and Doonsbury’s Zonker’s tanning obsession).
My first year in Buffalo was record snowfall for a December. I’ll just let that sink in. Buffalo. Snowfall. Record. December. One of my law school exams was held on a day where it literally took me one hour to drive the three miles to campus. I could see about an inch ahead of me. No one considered cancelling.
In San Diego I remember a frequent television news segment “tips for driving in the rain.” One helpful hint was to “turn on your wipers.” As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
So suffice it to say, while I’ve been through some legit winter long ago, for the past 22 years, especially with the frequent droughts, there’s been precious little to try my skills at beating the winter blahs. This winter, the winter of 2019-2020, has been, by Sacramento standards, cold, wet and overcast. With the rain, the Tule fog of the Sacramento Valley has returned some and even a couple of days of it takes its toll.
Some things that help, other than re-discovering windshield wipers and defrost settings, are lots of exercise, especially on the blah-ist days. And over 1000 milligrams of Vitamin D. Some of you are going to write to me and debunk everything I think I know about the ability of Vitamin D to prevent cancer and end Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I believe in it and I feel better when I take it large doses.
