Miami Livin' (Blimp Edition)
When I was first moving down here to Miami back in August, I had some questions for myself about what living in a place without winter would be like (hey Jack, what are the rules for capitalizing seasons? I feel like I have some lingering impulse to capitalize the "w" in winter - is that a correct impulse or something that used to happen, back in, say, 1991, that doesn't happen anymore?). I've never had particularly terrible problems with Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD (I love that its "SAD")), but I figured whatever seasonal affect (hard to separate, I'll admit from my "general affect") I did have would be greatly challenged by the absence of cold weather.
Indeed, when the sun shines in Miami, even in almost-Feburary, it feels hot. It's been probably the most beautiful week yet in Miami this week - mid-to-upper 70s everyday, mostly sunny. I've spent it mostly being kind of grumpy and sleeping a lot. Seasonal affect? Hard to say, really. I think part of it has to do with the grind of teaching at 8 AM three days a week catching up to me a bit, and also, though I hate to admit this, it probably has to do with the fact that I have two formal poems (poems with metrics and rhyme) due in my two classes next week. That and there's an insane amount of noise around my apartment currently due to there being a fresh construction site right next door, and a second one right across the street (just behind the Target), so I can't really keep my windows or balcony door open to enjoy the weather because its just too damn loud.
But I didn't start this post intending to bitch about how beautiful in Miami it is. I started this post because I see a blimp every day. Starting once I got back down here after New Year's, I have seen at least one blimp literally every single day. Over the weekend, I actually saw where the Goodyear blimp lives - just up the road from me really. Actually saw it parking in its hangar. But there's also a Met Life blimp and I think one other that hasn't been close enough for me to see what it's advertising. I guess this just has to do with it being tourist season in Miami. Having been here in the late summer ("S"ummer?) it's hard to remember that this is still pretty hot compared to most of the country, but still it's hard to imagine that there are that many people on the beach.
Blimps used to signify something special to me - at least in Pittsburgh, I don't think we even got blimps on a weekly basis for our sporting events. It's sad to think that by spring ("S"pring?) blimps won't mean anything at all. The only thing I can hope is that with the increased mileage on these things, that the blimps eventually wear out and have to be retired, and that somewhere in Everglades there's a special plot of land where blimps go to die. (Sort of like the School Bus graveyards that are dotted all through rural Pennsylvania (and I imagine many other places as well).)
Indeed, when the sun shines in Miami, even in almost-Feburary, it feels hot. It's been probably the most beautiful week yet in Miami this week - mid-to-upper 70s everyday, mostly sunny. I've spent it mostly being kind of grumpy and sleeping a lot. Seasonal affect? Hard to say, really. I think part of it has to do with the grind of teaching at 8 AM three days a week catching up to me a bit, and also, though I hate to admit this, it probably has to do with the fact that I have two formal poems (poems with metrics and rhyme) due in my two classes next week. That and there's an insane amount of noise around my apartment currently due to there being a fresh construction site right next door, and a second one right across the street (just behind the Target), so I can't really keep my windows or balcony door open to enjoy the weather because its just too damn loud.
But I didn't start this post intending to bitch about how beautiful in Miami it is. I started this post because I see a blimp every day. Starting once I got back down here after New Year's, I have seen at least one blimp literally every single day. Over the weekend, I actually saw where the Goodyear blimp lives - just up the road from me really. Actually saw it parking in its hangar. But there's also a Met Life blimp and I think one other that hasn't been close enough for me to see what it's advertising. I guess this just has to do with it being tourist season in Miami. Having been here in the late summer ("S"ummer?) it's hard to remember that this is still pretty hot compared to most of the country, but still it's hard to imagine that there are that many people on the beach.
Blimps used to signify something special to me - at least in Pittsburgh, I don't think we even got blimps on a weekly basis for our sporting events. It's sad to think that by spring ("S"pring?) blimps won't mean anything at all. The only thing I can hope is that with the increased mileage on these things, that the blimps eventually wear out and have to be retired, and that somewhere in Everglades there's a special plot of land where blimps go to die. (Sort of like the School Bus graveyards that are dotted all through rural Pennsylvania (and I imagine many other places as well).)
3 Comments:
In Pittsburgh sometime in the fall of 2002, there was a day when all four blimps in Goodyear's fleet happened to be in Western PA at the same time. So they flew them together over the city. I remember looking up and seeing them and thinking for a moment that it was some sort of ominous portent.
Well, since I happened to read this at work, I'll just relate what the Chicago Manual of Style says:
8.94 Days of the week, months, and seasons. Names of days and months are capitalized. The four seasons are lowercased (except when used to denote an issue of a journal; see 17.164).
This is why the blog is good. Commiseration and useful tidbits of knowledge together! Hurray!
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