Is This What San Francisco Feels Like?

We're still taking a while to get used to the monsoon. It's strange to wake up to grey skies so often, and it's also weird how chilly it often is. At the moment, around 6 pm, it's around 75 F (24 C), but it feels much chillier because of the dampness and the breeze. And it's lasting longer than we thought it would. At least one person had told us that the monsoon usually petered out by the end of July. But no.

All this dampness causes fashion problems. It's hard to know what to wear, since a bright and sunny day can cloud over in a few minutes, and of course vice versa. And a lot of what I could wear still have to be washed. We have a washing machine but no dryer -- just a clothes rack. (Dryers are extremely rare in India.) At the moment that rack is full of still slightly damp clothes from yesterday. It's hard for a cloudy sky and a damp breeze to have much effect on them. It makes me want the sun of March (just a little). Back then, you could dry two batches of laundry a day. It was amazing.

But that sun's not coming back like that for while. Yesterday, I broke down and bought a man shawl (that is, a shawl in manly colors). It looks pretty good on the couch, but I don't think I'll be wrapping it around myself, covering my torso and neck and perhaps my head as well, before leaving the house. That's the way you often see old men wearing them on the streets, especially in the early morning and night.