When weather attacks

That's not a layer of film on my glasses. It's really that hazy.

We're less than a week into the official summer season and I'm really not sure how much more I can take of this heat and humidity.

I'm the last person to go all Al Gore on you, but I do have what amounts to a somewhat unnatural dislike for this hot weather. I'm perfectly satisfied as long as the temperature is between 65 and 72 and slightly overcast. But a few degrees either way or an errant sunbeam and my otherwise pleasant demeanor turns remarkably less so.

I truly hate the summer. I don't handle the heat and humidity well and to make matters worse, my complexion was practically designed for skin cancer. And I'm certainly no fan of thunder storms (scattered or otherwise), tropical storms, hurricanes, or anything involving a front, squall, or clipper.

My severe disdain for summer weather goes back to childhood when I would freak out whenever it looked like it was going to storm. I don't know if it was a beach vacation ruined by Hurricane Andrew or the tornado that hit a few miles away when I was in 7th grade, but storms have always made me nervous. As I see it, rain leads to storms which leads to power failures, flooding, wind damage, lightning, cable outages, and all kinds of bad things. Don't believe me? Ask the people of New Orleans.

The TV weather people don't exactly make it easy on me. It's not a comfort to me when InstaSuperDopplerAccuWeatherTrackerPlus software can track a tornado watch to my street, zero in on my house and tell me to take cover in the basement. I don't have a basement.

Norm Lewis, John Collins, Bob Turk, Neal Estano, Tom Tasslemyer, Justin Berk -- all of them know just how to push my buttons. Sometimes it's a giant green L headed right for us. Last week we were right in the middle of a red quadrangle. Meanwhile, I envision the roof of my house being ripped off. So please don't talk to me about barometric pressure, dew point, or El Nino. Life is stressful enough without weather drama.

It's gotten so that the Weather Channel, formerly the beacon of all that is weather, can't even stick to simple forecasts anymore. Now we're given programming like Storm Stories, Full Force Nature, and It Could Happen Tomorrow -- y'know, just in case your own local weather on the 8's doesn't get your pulse racing enough.

Now in case you think I'm being unfair to summer, I should note that I could also do without winter weather. The weathermen can't get enough of that wintery mix, can they? They thrive off of the milk/bread/toilet paper insanity that is a Baltimore winter. Broadcasting from the salt dome is like Christmas to them.

But that white stuff is actually looking pretty good about now. And all I can do is sit back in my climate-controlled abode and count down the days until my beloved fall when it's safe to venture outside again.

No antiques at this roadshow

There's nothing like public television to tell you you're worthless. As if the pledge drives don't make you feel bad enough.

"Today's great programming has been made possible by viewers like you," they tell us. Yes, I know I'm a freeloader. I like it that way. Don't try to make me feel guilty. Now go back to the 10th anniversary of Les Miserables please.

But I digress.

Today I'm talking about Antiques Roadshow, the quirky little show-that-could that took up residence at the Baltimore Convention Center this past weekend. I was one of the few lucky enough to win tickets.

Let me rephrase that. I was one of the 3,400 given the opportunity to spend four hours standing on a hard concrete floor while lugging around items that may or may not be worth something. But even though all of our items fell into the latter category, it was kinda neat.

As soon as I found out we had the chance to go, I knew I would have to check out the treasure trove that is my grandparents' house. They have dust older than I am. So just as expected, trustworthy Grandma and Grandpa came up with a handful of interesting pieces for us to take.

The first two things we selected came from my great-grandfather's jewelry store. My grandmother's father, Anton Horvat, came to the U.S. from Hungary in the early 1900's. A professional jeweler, he set up shop on Charles Street in Baltimore. When the Great Depression hit, people brought in anything and everything made of metal to pawn for enough money to make it through the week.

A tea caddy, made by J.E. Caldwell & Co. of Philadelphia and engraved with the year 1906 on the bottom, is one of those items. According to my grandmother, the piece is a repoussé which I've since learned is a fancy way for describing an old technique of forming metal. The silver expert said the tea caddy should be worth about $100. It's a neat little thing and I wish I had an actual use for it. In the meantime, it's perfect for sitting on a shelf somewhere.

The other piece of metal work we took in is one that I've always liked -- a card case, like women used to carry back in the 1800s. The appraiser said it's in really good condition and indicative of the interest in the culture of the Far East. The piece, engraved with initials and May '88 (presumably 1888) is said to be worth in the neighborhood of $400. I'm actually tempted to use it as a business card case but chances are I'd set off too many metal detectors.

My great-grandmother's purse turned out to be the big disappointment of the day when we learned that it's actually worth less than any bag you could buy at Coach. The intricate hand-stitching is beautiful but apparently a lot of people thought so too and they made tons of them. Because of that, they're a dime a dozen. Well, technically they're not a dime a dozen. Specifically, it would go for somewhere between $60 and $80.

The last thing from my grandparents that we took along was a set of African mask bookends. Unfortunately, the story surrounding the bookends is worth much than the bookends themselves. My grandfather's parents ran a tavern in Baltimore back in the 1930s and 1940s. Apparently some sailors came into port and spent the day flirting with my great-grandmother and running up a bar tab. They used these bookends, said to be from their world travels, to pay off the bill.

According to the appraiser at the tribal art section, the bookends are nothing more than reproductions made for tourist purposes. He said that between 1920 and 1960, you could find these in most places up and down the coast of Africa. Still, they're worth about $150. Plus, they've graced my grandparents' end tables for the past 50 years so that counts for something.

Finally, the one piece I thought was worth the least -- a small pin/pendant Rich's step-dad found years ago on a parking lot -- turned out to be worth the most. What I thought had to be fake actually turned out to be diamonds worth $400. I tried my hardest to take a picture of the pin but the sparkly diamonds defeated my best efforts.

So while we didn't exactly fare well at Roadshow and never made it on camera, I definitely look forward to tuning in come January for the highlights of the Baltimore stop.

And remember PBS: Maybe if my stuff was actually worth something, I could afford to donate a few bucks and snag myself one of those cool tote bags.