If there is one thing that global climate change has taught us, it is that you never know when summer will come, how long it will last, or how much of it you will get all at once. Today we have: a Red Flag fire alert, snow on the ground, sunshine and 60 degrees, and a snow storm predicted for tomorrow. So I painted the fence.

Not all of it -- only about two-thirds of it and then, thank god, I ran out of paint. The paint had been sitting here on the living room floor unopened for almost a year. I bought it last spring, planning to paint the fence as soon as the blizzards stopped. It turned out, though, that the thing that stopped the blizzards was a record-breaking, sudden-onset heat wave that lasted all summer.

At first, I felt bad about the paint, just sitting there looking at me, all ready in its can with its paintbrush and paint-can opener and paint-stirring stick on top of it. But after a while, as the killer heat wave just went on and on, I thought, "Fuck it." It's like washing your car to make it rain. If my fence-painting plans are the cause of so much misery -- lawns and gardens destroyed, wild animals suffering, farmers ruined -- then I'll just have to let that paint sit right there forever, stirring stick be damned. I did sort of move it off to one side of the living room, though.

But today I outfoxed the weather gods and painted (two-thirds of) the fence on a balmy summer day in February. I expect the fence will catch fire and burn down tonight. I just hope no one is hurt.