I'm Fed Up

I want warm. I'm tired of winter. I don't care that the little rodent in Pennsylvania saw his shadow. I don't care that it's February and this is normal for this time of year.  I don't care that the winter Olympics (which I love) are being run in the Winteriest place outside of Disney's movie Frozen. I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of air that hurts when I breath it and shoveling and black ice and the most unpleasant of all, rain that won't commit to snow but makes everything infinitely worse than cold, cold and wet.

I want warm.  I want unreasonably toasty.  I want I'm debating if I should use a sheet as a cover when I sleep cozy.  I want a warm that makes people worry the sun is expanding and preparing to boil fifteen galaxies beyond ours.  That's right, I want fry an egg heat index melt in the shade blinded by the glare so hot it's painful type warm.  The kind of heat that you can see evaporating the asphalt.

So I'm pulling down the shades and vowing the following until the temperature approaches human levels of what one might not merely consider tolerable but tropical. 

Until temperatures become bearable, the following rules/edicts/unreasonable demands shall be in effect.

10) Anyone who asks for ice for a drink will be put outside.  Harvest your own.

9) I'm lacing every meal with Tabasco until something internal melts.

8) Bribes may be necessary to get me to leave the house.  Leave your offering, chocolate, the gift of fire, and hot chocolate.  I'll get back to you when it's 60 degrees or hotter. Maybe.

7) There aren't enough blankets in the world. So yes, I am using three comforters in addition to my sweats. 

6) Welcoming anyone who has a fever to the house as a heat source. 

5) In Alaska, they have three dog nights.  Here, we have a 4 kid minimum.

4) My new favorite spot to write is up against the dryer.

3) No one ever says, "Yeah, but it's a dry cold." 

2) Jack Frost and I are not on speaking terms.  Whoever is the anti-Jack Frost, the mythical creature that goes about creating spots of sweltering summer?  Him, I want to talk to...stat!

1)  When the weather channel is dealing in negative numbers, I don't deal in the real world.  

Hibernating and dangerous until Spring shows its face. 

Snow Cakes, Turkey Vultures and Extreme Extermination Measures

We have a very long driveway. It clocks out at one tenth of a mile.

We had a very large blizzard; about 18 inches dumped itself all over the DC area.

That driveway is a pain when you just want to get the mail or bring back the recycling cans. But when you have to shovel snow....pass the advil please.

Our children were dutiful. I will give them full marks for their valiant attempts to shovel the white stuff away. We got through 2/3rds of the job but fatigue and darkness postponed completion by one day. So today, in an effort to eliminate the job and keep the kids from despair, my husband hit upon snow cakes.

He shoveled out breaks in the drifted snow, carving out rectangles that were 8x5x2 and then we personalized them with the shovel. Different sizes were rendered for different children. Then we dressed them warmly and sent them outside. The walk was clean within the hour.

So now I'm wondering, if I wrote their names on top of their piles of laundry, would it get put away in sixty minutes?

Snow brings out the crazy in most of us.

So when I saw my kids all staring at the far back trees and throwing snowballs into the air, I assumed they were having a normal sibling scrimmage. My oldest was studying for exams and I decided he needed a break so we dressed warmly and snuck out the front to spring a surprise attack. We ran out to find two of my children lying still on the dry shoveled driveway. The others were motioning for us to ssshhhhhh.

They were trying to lure a Turkey buzzard by pretending to be carrion so they could throw snowballs.

No Turkey Buzzards were fooled by my turkeys, not even close.

Then, the mailman pulled up in his truck. He had to wait for the children to scramble off into the snow as he pulled up to hand out five boxes. Telling him they were bait for scavenger birds didn't even raise an eyebrow. I'd say that meant he'd heard such things before but I doubt it.