Bipolar disorder

Cold, cloudy, and wet! Cold, cloudy, and wet!

Faithful readers -- whose numbers I trust are legion -- will of course recall my mantra of lament back on April 6. "Silly old Rainier96," I heard you all laugh. "Of course it's cold, cloudy and wet. The doofus insists on living in Seattle!" I crawled back under my blanket of moss, with a damp scowl on my face.

Yeah, well. Two months later. Ten days shy of the summer solstice. It's still cold, cloudy and wet. And you know what, faithful readers? According to official statistics(!!!) -- official, ok? -- this June, to date, has been the coldest June in all of Seattle's recorded history. Recorded history, from a weatherman's perspective, being history that dates back to 1891, a sizable hunk of time ago.

Meanwhile -- and my mouth fills with bitter bile and gall -- Fairbanks (Fairbanks freaking Alaska, mind you!!) basked in the 70's for six of the first ten days of the month. While we Washingtonians, thousands of miles to the south, splashed around miserably, our hands and feet numb, from cold dripping day to cold dripping day.

So, what's going on, people? What would Al Gore come up with to explain this anomaly? Where is that much vaunted global warming of his, and why am I getting none of it? Why the *bleep* is my furnace still running, on June 11, almost half-way though June? Still burning oil, worth its weight in gold, while happy oblivious school kids have already finished their classes for the year, and are out dancing mindlessly in the puddles?

Move your chairs up closer, my friends. Here's my theory. While everyone's eyes were on the antics of Britney Spears, or on the Obama-Clinton duel, our planet did a little dance. Just a little jig, a quick little step. One of those dances it does every few eons.

There has been a polar shift. The so-called "North Pole," I conclude, based on careful study and observation, is no longer the north pole. The Space Needle is now the north pole. We here in Seattle are gently revolving around our very own local icon, while our temperatures drop, and our tempers and oil bills rise. It makes sense, yes? The new north pole (née Space Needle) is far more impressive, magnificent, nay, polar, than was the old barber pole that reputedly stuck out of the ice cap covering the Arctic Ocean.

So if the north pole is in Seattle, where does that put Fairbanks? In the tropics? Look at your maps, kiddies, and do some measuring. It is 1,518 miles from Seattle to Fairbanks. And now that Seattle owns the new north pole (whether it wants it or not), the direction from Seattle to Fairbanks -- hell, the direction from Seattle to anyplace -- is south. Every degree change in latitude represents 69.17 miles. Therefore, Fairbanks is 21.94° south of Seattle, which works out to 68.06° N. latitude, under Seattle's new polar sovereignty. Since before the polar shift, Fairbanks was located at about 65° N. latitude, it's actually been nudged about 200 miles farther north.

Which is an excellent place for it, as far as I'm concerned, but admittedly doesn't explain why it's been having 70° temperature.

But global warming does explain it. Excellent. Everything fits.

So what's going to happen to the old lopsided barber pole that artists always show jutting out of the ice to mark the former North Pole? We'll put it on the registry of historical landmarks. It's no longer the north pole, but we can call it the West Pole. Why not?

You remember how he [Pooh] discovered the North Pole; well, he was so proud of this that he asked Christopher Robin if there were any other Poles such as a Bear of Little Brain might discover. "There's a South Pole," said Christopher Robin, "and I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them."

So, see? There you are. Someone else already thought of it. And now, if you'll excuse me, these scientific posts are quite tiring to write, and I think I'll go stretch out on the sofa for a few minutes.

Wrapped in a blanket, of course. A heavy wool blanket.