October 19, 2009

First Hint of Winter.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 10:10 pm

ice-scraperThis morning, as I went out the front door for my groundpound, I noticed that there was a bit of frost on the grass. I had already changed my morning wardrobe to include sweat pants and a long-sleeved top under my nylon shell, but today was the first day where the autumn snap in the air was more than evident.

As I was walking, I began to cogitate about yet another impending winter, and I got to thinking about maybe writing later about the things that really stink about winter. So, that’s what I’m doing. Off the top of my cruller, here they are:

1. Bone-shattering cold: Groundpounding in the cold weather can be invigorating, particularly after one gets moving and the blood circulating, but once the temperatures head into the single digits and the hawk appears in full force, groundpounding requires several layers and takes some serious grit.

2. Snow: Yes, it is beautiful when it first falls and covers the ground with an undulating sheet of white, but all that ends when you have to drive in, shovel, pile, or snow blow that crap. During a snowstorm, I’ve marveled at peeps from Florida who have never seen the stuff spread their arms out with joy and do a slow circle dance with their tongues out to catch some flakes. WTF?? I suppose it isn’t much different than how we Northerners look to Floridians when we venture to the Sunshine State to break our asses giving ourselves second-degree burns in the summer sun.

3. Cabin Fever: The winter often limits one’s outdoor time to running to and from the car to attend to necessary things like working, shopping or trips to the doc. The rest of the time is spent squirreled up in the house, which, after a while, can make a person a bit nuts. Alcohol and a nearby friendly saloon help.

4. Dark: It is really depressing when it becomes dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live in a place like farookin’ Greenland where it is dark for months at a time.

5. Ice: Most of us can drive pretty well in the snow, having driven in it from Day One, but ice is something else. You could be Tony Stewart, but when the car hits a big patch of ice, all bets are off, and your four-wheel drive is useless. Ice also makes groundpounding all but impossible, particularly when the ice is not readily visible. It can keep me inside (see above), rather than risking breaking my ass on a frozen sidewalk. Oh, then there is the joy of scraping ice off the windshield and windows of the car in the morning and evening. Hell, Florida peeps don’t even own an “ice scraper,” while most of us have several of them, including the fancy ones with a broom on the other end of the scraper.

6. The hustle and bustle of the “Holidays”: “Hustle and bustle” my ass. The run-up to Christmas the Holidays is pure chaos and commercial lunacy. Many of the local stores have already dragged out the Christmas Holiday stuff. I sometimes with I could just sleep through it all.

7. Christmas “Holiday” commercials: They are endless and positively sickening. “The Ajax Extension Cord! It makes a wonderful Holiday gift! Get one for dad.”

That is all.

12 Comments

  1. Grass, greener, yeah yeah yeah. But I truly get sick of being miserably hot all the time. It is easier to warm up than cool down. FACT. Also, I lived somewhere once in the snow and I found I THOUGHT more clearly; I mean, the closer to the equator I get the more stoopit and sloooow I get. you just get less done; you lose motivation, except for bitching about the heat and humidity. So yeah, your winter may suck but at least you’re not flopping on hot sheets at night like a demented flapjack trying to find a “cool spot” that DOES NOT EXIST.

    Comment by dogette — October 19, 2009 @ 11:25 pm

  2. Dogette must live close to me.

    Comment by Jean — October 19, 2009 @ 11:58 pm

  3. It’s attitude. I live in Seattle and every year I run around with my mouth open trying to catch the huge flakes. And I’m no spring chicken.

    Comment by Carl Brannen — October 20, 2009 @ 3:38 am

  4. Heat and humidity SUCK ASS. Here we get about two months of winter- which means a few days of frost and basically you have to wear a sweater. The winter coat I own is I believe still in the closet somehwere and has shoulder pads in it, circa 1985. When we see (or if it’s even reported) a few snowflakes, the state closes down. Srsly. I just wanted to complain and thank you for giving me a platform in which to do just that.

    Comment by Laura — October 20, 2009 @ 6:35 am

  5. I don’t mind the cold so much, as long as there’s not one of our NJ winter rains attached to it, that is the suck.
    The Big Orange Box in town had Christmas trees and those stupid blow up yard decorations on display the first week of October. I guarantee that our food store will have Christmas candy replacing the bins of Hallowe’en candy on the 31st. Thanksgiving will probably be overlooked again, as usual.

    Comment by gregor — October 20, 2009 @ 8:18 am

  6. yep, i have to get the scraper back in the car, dang it.

    Comment by Mr. Bingley — October 20, 2009 @ 12:10 pm

  7. it won’t be overlooked at our house, gregor!

    Comment by Mr. Bingley — October 20, 2009 @ 12:10 pm

  8. Let’s see… while in St. Louis this last weekend we had to sit for 10 minutes letting the car run on the last morning to get the ice off the windshield (it’s generally about 70 and gorgeous there at this time of year – so much for global warming). We arrived back in Boston – late – because it was snowing here. Winter seems to be making an early appearance. heh. Oh joy.

    Comment by Teresa — October 20, 2009 @ 2:34 pm

  9. I don’t know, I’m kind of enjoying the increasingly cold weather. There is nothing quite like the sound and sight of people scraping their cars clear of frost and soon enough, snow and ice, while you sip a cup of coffee in your sweatpants and fake sheepskin slippers because you work from home full time.

    On a more serious note, get yourself a Gore Tex jacket, it does a better job of blocking wind and water then anything else I have tried, including leather and wool.

    Comment by Michael in CT — October 20, 2009 @ 5:55 pm

  10. Winter blows. Especially out here on the farm, where there’s nothing to stop the wind. It’s just the added slap in the face that we didn’t even have a summer this years, with only two days over 90 degrees. Pfffffft.

    Comment by Jerry in Indiana — October 20, 2009 @ 9:00 pm

  11. I can’t take weather extremes. I’m probably more south than most of your readers. I joke that if I drive an hour, I can probably see Cuba if I squint hard enough.

    I hate the heat. I hate the humidity. I hate all that of which Dogette speaks. But… I would hate being the miserable cold you have, the ice, the cold cars, all of that. Been there, done that, have the jacket, I’ll pass on ever doing it again. I’ll take what I have any day over that.

    That said, my dream is somewhere in the middle… NE Alabama, N GA, E TN, those areas… where they get actual 4 distinct seasons. You get that bitter cold for… 3 months… rarely any snow and if you want to see it, you cand drive to it. Real falls and springs. Nasty hot summers for… 3 months. That to me is heaven.

    Comment by Bou — October 20, 2009 @ 10:42 pm

  12. Bou, my Bride and I are thinking exactly that, E TN, for when we sell the house here in Jersey and retire.

    Comment by Mr. Bingley — October 21, 2009 @ 6:45 am

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