Fog

We’ve had a string of foggy days and I love it!

Of course, we’re not talking about the Tule fog we used to get when Mary and I lived in the Central Valley, where dozens of cars and trucks would wind up in one big crash on I-5 or SR-99. Nor do I refer to the huge billowing clouds of the stuff that roll into San Francisco from the ocean side.

Naw, today’s was regular old fog. And I loved it!

It was hugging the hills that border Lake Washington as I rode the bus across the floating bridge this morning and obscured all but the very top of the mountain (that would be THE mountain, Mt. Rainier, doncha know) and it turned the late afternoon a velvety gray while I was walking from home from the bus stop.

Fog eases the edges of everything you see and brings your focus in close. And McKuen was wrong – it doesn’t come on “little cat feet” but rather, just seems to be, a condition of the air that changes the light and the dark, both.

I feel warmer in fog than on a clear, cold day. Maybe that’s where the clichéd term “blanket of fog” comes from, you think?

In the dark of the morning all the cars have their headlights on and quite a few drivers have hit the high beams. How come people don’t know that turning on the high beams actually degrades night vision because of the reflected glare?

Streetlights are cooler in the fog. As a kid, I used to love that halo effect and I feel a bit like that long ago kid when I see it today.

The fog was just off the water of the lake as we crossed the floating bridge on the way home. It looked as though if you ducked just a little, you could kayak the whole three miles across without getting your hair wet. Speaking of which, it always surprises me just a little to get to work and realize my hair is wet when it hasn’t rained.

I like bright, shiny days well enough, I suppose. But a bright, shiny day would never seem so bright or so shiny if there were no foggy days.

We need all kinds. Just now, I’m rather enjoying the fog.