NEW ENGLAND WEATHER

Mark Twain said, "If you don't like New England weather, wait a minute...it will change." We are noted for a lot of snow in the winter but I don't recall having a snow storm that starts in Atlanta! The storm lines are as clear as they are in tornadoes. A town five miles away may get several more inches of snow.

Today has stayed in the mid and low 20's. It has snowed lightly, heavily, and we have had freezing rain. The phone company has apologized for having some difficulties, the airlines have halted flights, schools are closed and most of us are just hunkered down watching through windows in our heated houses if we are not so unfortunate as to have to go out. The picture on the left is a neighbor's house across the street. The berm that the street plows throw up is more than visible and this is all after everything got cleaned up. Now imagine it also full of freezing rain and you might get a feel of the problems it raises. The mound in the lawn was getting down during the warm days we had but is piled up a bit again. I think he is ingenious, the way he throws it all in the middle of the lawn so he can plow a path to his workroom behind the house and all his equipment (satellite stuff, etc).

The worst is cleaning off cars when
they are iced over. Believe me, that is pure ice under that fluffy looking snow and the temperature remains in the mid-twenties. Oh well, as the song goes, Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year!

RAINY DAYS

Something about a rainy day brings me back to childhood. I no longer 'play' outside on sunny days so why should it make a difference? Yet, difference there is. My muscles and bones ache and I have no energy (or so I tell myself) to start a project. All I want to do is sit in a chair and read, occasionally getting up to stuff my face, to stop the stomach gurglings.

If it rains all day and I can rationalize there is nothing I HAVE to do, I can eliminate the several minutes it takes to get dressed. My furniture and the books I read do not care about my appearance. But rain means something different to many people. It makes grass grow when you can't get it mowed and can only wish you had a goat on your lawn.

If you are so unfortunate as to suffer a basement water problem or be in a flood plain, filling sandbags must not be fun and wading indoors even less comfortable. (Watching your belongings float around the basement is even worse.) I can't imagine the horror of sewer systems backing up!

However, when it is just normal rain, the gentle tapping on roof windows, the muted light, the fresh green outside makes it not unpleasant. When your hairdo does not suffer getting wet, you can even happily go out in the car and run errands without having to locate sunglasses. Nature seems forgets to keep a proper balance. I'm not complaining (as I listen to the 110 degree temperatures around the country, the tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, and whatever else people are subjected to by Mother Nature). Insensitively, I silently think, "Better you than I". I can tolerate the snow in NE winters and the cold. I am forced to tolerate the price of staying warm in the winter but I do not have to watch my house float down the river, burn up, or disappear in a gap created by an earthquake or sink hole. No, indeed, I can just hunker down in a comfy chair and imagine all the things I could do if it wasn't raining. It's almost as good as being there!

A HEADFUL NOT WORTH REPEATING

Sometimes one's thoughts race around in many circles, touching subjects along the way like an insect flying in the garden, touching on the leaves, blossoms, and plants, never staying on any spot for long. My head has behaved in that manner today...too many thoughts to unwind singly from the cumulative mass.

As a disappointed old faithful of the TV pundits and talking heads, I've decided to take a bit of a hiatus and limit myself choices to listening only to the speeches I hear directly from the candidates themselves. I continue to respond to phone calls, some of which are interesting and some not, though I admit I am far more apt to talk longer to people who care enough to ask me what is new in my life as well as telling me what is new in theirs. The New England continuously changing weather makes each day a challenge for leaving this cozy nest. The parking area in front of the house has become a very lumpy skating rink. While the walk has been melted of ice and cleared, the walk over the lawn requires the skill displayed by Evel Knievel to get to the car and down from the wall safely.

With a holiday in the middle of the week, which changed the trash day and pushed the weekend up too fast and totally disoriented me, I've decided to stay quiet and give my head a rest by watching chick-flick movies that are purely vanilla (or B-flat, if you prefer a music metaphor). Since my first choice would have been to stay at home in warmth until the leaves are out in the spring, this is what I will have to settle for tonight.