2003-01-14 - 9:39 p.m.
WHERE�S THE SNOW?
Where�s the snow? This month, we have the cold. I usually wear suits with skirts when I go to visit clients but I have an exception in my rule for days with temperatures in the single digits or below. I will be wearing a jacket, wool slacks, and a nice blouse on my prison trip tomorrow. (But not an underwire bra. Never an underwire bra. They do not go through the metal detectors.) But there is not a snowflake on the ground.
Normally, January is quite snowy. We�ve barely had an inch of snow and even that melted off very quickly. Shoveling snow is not my favorite activity but this lack of snow is unsettling. Besides, I can kick restless children outside in the snow. Going outside in the cold with no snow has no appeal. They return faster than a yo-yo.
At this rate, the farmers will begin complaining early. Farmers complaining about weather is a spring ritual around here. Some years are too warm. Some years are too cold. Some years are too wet. Some years are too dry. Most of those complaints are barely worth listening to. To others, attention must be paid. Drought is an ugly, brown, creeping blight that stunts and withers. Drought is worth worrying about.
A snowless winter is just as dark as a snowy one except more so. The extra sunlight that glints off the white expanse doesn�t break up the gray. A snowless winter is winter with all its ugliness showing. It�s a drab winter with so many browns and grays that my heart longs for greens and blues and reds. Having no snow in a cold winter is like going bowling and breathing in the smoke yet not having a ball.
This winter is a bait-and-switch winter. I�ve seen the Hallmark winters on all those cards. I�ve seen the flakes, glistening trees, shining snow piles, cute snowmen, and shoveled paths. I�ve seen the children hurling snowballs. I know that this winter, like all winters, made that promise. But so far this winter has squandered it.
I feel like the lady in that old Wendy�s commercial�the one that all my young readers won�t know anything about. I�m referring, of course, to that older lady who used to walk into other fast food joints, look at their little hamburgers, and yell, �Where�s the beef?�
So, where�s the snow?
LAST YEAR: Whose House is It Anyway?
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
Everything�s Going My Way
In the Dumps
Blame It On...
The Answer to Clarence
Hypothermia
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
