We are half-way through this warm weather month of August and the heat has become something of a burden and a hassle for many of us. Good thing the weather can be a source of amusement too sometimes. There were two reports last week about the weather that just made me smile. I am re-telling them here in an effort to provide you with something to smile (or smirk) about this summer.

The first report, which originated from Moscow in Russia, recounted how Alyona Gabitova, a Russian woman from the town of Uljanovsk, was suing local weather forecasters for making a wrong prediction about the weather that ultimately ruined her holiday trip.

It seems that local weather forecasters had predicted sunny weather and a temperature of around 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit for one weekend a couple of weeks ago. Based on that weather report, Gabitova planned a weekend camping trip to a nearby nature park. She packed carefully for what she anticipated would be a grand weekend frolicking under clear blue skies but instead of sunny weather, she was greeted with non-stop rains all throughout the weekend.

As a result, Gabitova said her entire weekend was ruined and, to top if off, she caught a cold after getting soaked under all that rain. She later filed a suit in court against the weather forecasters. The local newspaper Nowyje Iswestijia reported that Gavitova was suing the weather forecasters to reimburse the travel costs of her aborted holiday camping trip. The paper said the court has yet to act on the woman's complaint.

Now, how's that for new-found freedom in the former communist republic?

The other news report, this time from a local US newspaper, told of how people can determine how warm the weather was going to be by listening to the chirping of crickets. Apparently, all you have to do is count the number of chirps which crickets make in 15 seconds, add the figure of 40 to that, and that's going to be close to the weather for that day. The report said that doing this will put you a couple of degrees of the actual air temperature.

Too bad the lady Gabitova did not know this early enough. Otherwise, she would have noticed that no crickets were chirping during her holiday weekend and would have cancelled her trip.