Mid-Winter Reprieve Part Two. Or...Jane Might Have Been…(mumble, mumble…)

Okay, so I have to admit something. I might have been sort of, kind of, maybe just a tiny little bit…wrong. (Ack, that wasn’t easy to spit out!)

Whatever could I – Ms. Perfect – be wrong about?

W-e-l-l, for one thing, calling myself “Ms. Perfect.” Undoubtedly, I am setting myself up for all sorts of snarky comments like, “You? Perfect?” Followed by what I consider, quite frankly, rude mocking laughter.

(I roll with a very cynical crowd.)

But, also, I was maybe not really 100% right in some of my comments about the whole mid-winter reprieve thing.

It IS easy to get sucked into happy sunshine-y, balmier temperatures in mid-February as if we will not be exposed to snow and slush and ice again for the rest of the year.

So if I owned a motorcycle, I might even be tempted to haul it out, dust if off, strap on a helmet and go for a ride. (Fortunately for all those sharing the road with me, I do NOT own a motorcycle.)

Instead, I went outside and literally basked in the sun like a cat that has found that one perfect slice of sun shining on the carpet and lies down to nap in its warmth.

I sighed as I felt the heat warm my very bones. I wore my sunglasses for reasons other than fending off the glare from the winter snow and ice. And I actually smiled at other people for the first time all winter.

Hmmm. Maybe there IS something to the whole notion of wearing shorts, t-shirts and flip flops when the mercury rises twenty degrees above freezing. It is a figurative thumbing our noses at Old Man Winter for forcing us to wear ugly snow boots day after day when we really want to wear strappy sandals that show off our petal pink painted toenails.

It signifies the hope that soon we will be baring shoulders and knees to the heat of summer and will be frolicking in pools and at beaches.

Except I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anyone “frolic.” Who does that??

Besides, what will really happen is that we will forget all about the frigid winter we’ve just survived and all too soon we will become cranky as we deal with soaring 90 degree temperatures and 100% humidity. And we will complain about our ever increasing utility bills as our air conditioners struggle to keep up and cool us down. We’ll gingerly slide into our cars that have baked under the merciless sun for a mere 4.5 minutes before the internal temperature reaches the boiling point.

As do our tempers.

But. For now, we’ll look at the sun and we’ll smile. We’ll walk outside with our feet hitting actual pavement and we’ll be grateful that – just for today – we don’t have to worry about broken appendages from taking nose-dives on ice-covered sidewalks.

Some people will even haul out their motorcycles for a spin. And some people will drive with their windows down.

Not me, of course. I said I wasn’t 100% right. I didn’t say I was crazy. I still believe people catch colds when we have mid-winter reprieves.

Plus, I’m nearly out of Echinacea.

Enjoy the sunshine and warmth while it lasts, folks. And pass me the hand sanitizer, would ya?