Oysterville Gothic

     Yesterday was Earth Day and I had every good intention of going outside and trying to make my little corner of this earth a bit more inviting.  But, as is usual at this time of year, I found it too cold.  I am such a Fair Weather Gardener!  Even in the middle of summer, I am bundled to the eyeballs, especially if that cold wind is blowing off the ocean.
     When I first moved here full-time in the late seventies, I told myself it was all those years of living in California; my blood was thin.  And I was sure that it would thicken up within a season and I, too, could wear shorts when the sun was shining – never mind if the thermometer read forty degrees.  Well, I’ve waited for thirty plus years and it’s not happening.
     The last time I saw my doctor I asked what he thought my problem was.   He suggested that I have my thyroid checked out but, as we both anticipated, it was normal.  “Well,” he said, “it’s just a matter of perception.  Don’t worry about it.”
     I came home and looked up ‘perception’ in my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Deluxe Edition.  It gave a couple of those inane definitions like “a result of perceiving” and then: “awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation; physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience.”  I knew that!  And I knew it yesterday, too.  It was cold out there!