Blech

I’m in a bit of a mood today, and I’m not sure what caused it. Hubby thinks he might be coming down with a cold, and I may be catching it. In addition, it’s just a skanky day all-around. The kind of day that looks like wet cotton. The kind that feels like you stumbled into a Dan Fogelberg¹ nightmare and can’t get out. The kind that epitomizes winter in Atlanta. For all my adoring fans who live on the Great Lakes, yes. I know it could be colder and darker out there. But still, I don’t think it’s possible for this town to be any drearier than it becomes every year at this time.

I’ve never been on a pair of skis before. Or a pair of ice skates. Or a snowmobile, for that matter. Yeah, all those things sound vaguely interesting to me, except that I’d have to travel several hundred miles to make any of them happen... and if I have to load my butt up on a plane, I’m making it somewhere warm. Here, we just get cold, and wet. And grey.

It’s better this year than last year, when I was taking a certain anti-inflammatory nasal spray used to treat the nasal symptoms of indoor and outdoor nasal allergies and year-round nonallergic nasal symptoms. I still contend that it made me very unbalanced and caused much more depression than usual. But you know, I haven’t heard anyone complain about it, and it’s not listed as a side effect on their website. Apparently I’m the only person in North America who was reduced to a blithering idiot by this drug. Therefore, I’m just going to continue not mentioning their name. I mean, all I need now is for some big pharmaceutical company to come after me for libel. And even though truth is a perfect defense in such cases, it just wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

Our stupid little groundhog did not see his shadow this year, which allegedly means winter’s over. That was about a week before the temperature plummeted into the mid-20s and stayed there for three days. My lawn is starting to green up... or was before winter’s last hurrah. And last Thursday, it was 67 degrees and sunny. And Friday, the fog and clouds and spitting rain re-appeared, and the temperature dropped back below freezing again, just in time for the weekend.

So when we retire, hubby wants to move up to the mountains. I can’t blame him so much for that; it’s where he grew up. I, on the other hand, did not grow up in any mountains and rarely saw temperatures below 40 degrees. I mean, I'm seriously starting to feel like Anakin Skywalker, and I’m thinking that somewhere like Phoenix² would be a terrific place to live whenever I decide to become a grumpy old man.³ 120-degree summers? Piece of cake. 121 days without rainfall? Meh. As long as the sun is shining, I don’t really care about much else.

So how 'bout it, Mr. Sun? How much more of this blah shiat am I gonna have to tolerate?

¹I used to think Auld Lang Syne was the most depressing song ever... I mean, it’s only ever sung by drunks who interrupt the biggest party of the year to croon their way through it. Fact is, it’s not nearly so depressing as the pop song it spawned. Can you tell me where you keep your razor blades?
²I mean, Tatooine.
³You know. Like next week.