SNOW VS SUN

I have spent the last few days hallucinating that I am somewhere around palm trees, or at least somewhere toasty and warm.  


Snow bunnies forgive me: when you were born around palm trees, their siren song is loudest this time of year.


This recent spate of raw and icy weather has not helped matters much, and hard as I try to focus on winter's beauty, the pull of the sun only becomes louder.


My poor friends endure my tirades about the cold, or the musings about trudging on icy sidewalks from the municipal lot where I have to park my car so the streets can be cleared, the gazillion layers that makes us resemble wooly mammoths, and the cold, ah, the relentless frigid air.


That said, some of those friends, who live in diametrically opposed places, have given me perspective. 


Denise lives in Grand Cayman, a tiny albeit gorgeous gem of an island where I spent a portion of my life. Two days ago I sent her a message yammering about warm breezes and fruity, umbrella festooned drinks and she shot back, "I'm working and I wish it was cooler." Apparently the AC in her building was on the fritz, something they rarely mention in tropical travel brochures. 


Then there is Richard, who a) is insane (aka a musician), b) lives in Alaska with his wife and kids and c) did I say he was insane? Richard hails from Woonsocket, so he's familiar with RI winters and throwing the kids out the window a cookie. He wrote, "A bit brisk here in Juneau. Winds gusting to 88 mph. Temperature 20 degrees, but wind chill well below 0 degrees. Anywhere else this would be severe weather. Just another day here." 


Meanwhile Hugh, another Rhode Islander musician (draw your own conclusions) who now lives in the land down under, is enjoying summertime and some well deserved vacation. Hugh will be coping with Old Man Winter when those of us in the U.S. are throwing shrimp on the Fourth of July barbecue. 


It's all relative, I suppose, and in this day of lightning communications via the internet, we get to share each other's lives and doings, enjoying personal weather reports as seen via the eyes of a friend.  What is invigorating cold to some is nasty to others, ditto for the humid warmth in which those palm trees thrive.


This writer, however, will trade a boatload of snow for a day of heat, cheap. Denise, I'll even deliver.


Amen, and pass the mustard. 

SNOW WOES

By some sheer miracle, my neck of the woods was spared by Mother Nature this week even as she walloped places that do not usually see much snow, never mind enough to bury small trucks.

My friend Karen in Virginia, the original snow bunny thanks to years in New Hampshire where snow was invented, at first was psyched about it. However, this afternoon she finally admitted that her son is ready to go back to school and everybody is weary of shoveling. (Considering she lives 15 miles from the White House, I'm surprised she didn't tire of shoveling a long time ago. Although where I live, the politicos are masters of shoveling so I may have to take that statement right back.)

I'm not sure what I dislike most about traveling in snow -- digging out your car or the white knuckle rides as you maneuver your car along increasingly slippery roads. Don't even get me started about the idiots in their SUVs who drive like maniacs because they think they are immune to the icy roads -- I have seen too many of them in ditches or worse, upside down with the wheels still moving like japanese beetles that suddenly find themselves upended.


Not to mention the need to wear additional and bulky clothing, scarves, hats, mittens, earmuffs, snowboots and in some cases dark glasses because of the glare. And did I mention the "spare" shoes etc you lug around in your car just in case your original duds get soaked from either the snow or the shoveling? A lot of this stuff just ends up dissapearing into the vortex, turning up years later under the seat or a soiled mess by the side of the road.

And the ick factor. You say "Ick!" when a load of it hits you on the head or down the back of your coat or into your shoes. Okay. You don't really say "ick" you say something else similar but this is a family blog.

Snow. It's a four letter word. Ick.

Amen, and pass the mustard.