This is January in Ohio. Really?

According to my trusty iPhone, the outside temperature is currently 54 degrees Fahrenheit. To someone in Florida or Hawaii or Tahiti, 54 degrees Fahrenheit might be considered frigid enough to wear a puffy down jacket, but to someone in Ohio in January, 54 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty much short sleeves and a light windbreaker jacket sort of weather.

It’s actually a little spooky. What happened to winter? And I’m definitely regretting the heavy wool socks, quilted snow boots and turtleneck sweater I donned this morning assuming it was January and I live in Ohio.

Go figure.

So while the wind is kicking up some, it’s bright and sunny outside. I swear I’m starting to see buds on the trees. And I start thinking that winter is nearly over.

Yeah, right.

But I can’t help myself. I get all happy when we turn the corner on winter and head into spring when we get to wash the road salt off our vehicles for the last time and pack away the wool scarves.

But this is Mother Nature’s cruel joke on us Midwesterners. It is, after all, January 23rd and we are, after all, still in the midst of winter. We could get an ice storm tonight. Or a blizzard tomorrow. And our defenses will be down. So we might wake up tomorrow and start rooting through the closet to find that short sleeve shirt and light windbreaker jacket…only to misread Mother Nature’s intentions and find ourselves with permanent goose bumps on our exposed arms and frostbite on our toes.

Fortunately for me, my short sleeve shirts and windbreaker-type jackets are packed away in bins with big signs on them that read: “Do Not Open Until April!” I’m not falling for it, Mother Nature – you hear me?? I’ll just deal with the temporary global warming in my feet while I’m wearing these wool socks. Or maybe I can go sockless and start a new trend. No socks with quilted snow boots? Nah, I don’t think it’ll catch on. I mean, who’d even know I was going sockless underneath those quilted snow boots?

Fashion trendsetter, I’m not.

Ah well. I suppose I should just enjoy the milder weather we’re experiencing today and assume that tomorrow may be quite different.

It is, after all, winter. And I am, after all, in Ohio. As ‘they’ say, “If you don’t like the weather in… (insert name of State here)…stick around for another 10 minutes and it’ll change.”

So…

…Yep, I took a 10 minute break and, sure enough, the sun has disappeared and it’s raining. Plus, I hear we now have a wind advisory with possible wind gusts up to 40 MPH. And yet, according to my trusty iPhone, it is 57 degrees Fahrenheit.

Seriously?

Perhaps I should stop writing about the weather here in Ohio in January. I’m getting dizzy.

You wouldn’t want to use me as your meteorological source for the current weather conditions, anyway. After all, I’m the one wearing wool socks and quilted snow boots in 57 degree weather.

'Tis the Season. Trick-or-Treat Season.

It’s a cold, rainy day in October and I can no longer fool myself into thinking that the warm weather is going to last.  Instead, I know we’re heading smack-dab directly into winter.  How do I know this?  Because I flipped the switch on the “butt-warmers” in my car this morning.  That’s a for-sure sign right there.  It’s as significant as when Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and it means six more weeks of winter.  I probably won’t turn off those warmers until mid-April – whether I see my shadow in February or not. 

Plus, Vince finally turned on the furnace.  Fuzzy mittens and fleece-lined boots and winter jackets cannot be far behind. Sigh.

I’m not sure why we stick around Ohio, but we continue to do so year after year.  Maybe I like self-torture?  Probably.  Even when Vince suggests we move to a locale with a warmer climate (like Barbados, perhaps?), we don’t do it.  I start thinking about all the family and friends we’d be leaving behind and I get nostalgic and homesick before even thinking about packing that first teacup.

At least there are a few fun activities we can participate in before the snow flies.  Hopefully.  Like, we have a Halloween party to go to next weekend.  I’m looking forward to it because I think I have a cool costume – if it all comes together.  If it doesn’t, I might be wearing the same costume that Vince is wearing.  It’s a T-shirt that reads, “This IS my Halloween Costume!” 

Hey, it counts.  He won’t, after all, wear it to Sunday dinner with the in-laws.

Also, Vince’s son was over the other day and he wanted to carve a pumpkin.  So off to Kroger we went where they carefully reviewed their options and finally selected two decent sized pumpkins.  I assumed that Vince would be joining his son in carving the second one, but it turns out he expected me to carve it.  Me?

I have to confess – I have never in my life carved a pumpkin!  Seriously. I mean, sure, we had jack-o-lanterns for Halloween when we were kids, but do you think my father trusted any of us with sharp implements?  Not on a bet.  He probably figured we’d already filled our family quota of ER trips for stitches, broken bones and life-threatening fevers.  He wasn’t taking any chances.

So we all gathered around him while he did the honors and made the pumpkins come to scary life.

That was actually okay with me because the insides of a pumpkin are pretty gloppy and ooky. (And, yes, as a matter of fact, those are the technical terms.)  I didn’t really want any part of scooping out the guts of a pumpkin.

As I grew older, I realized that carved pumpkins were a target for neighborhood hoodlums and I didn’t ever want to walk around picking up bits of orange-y smooshed pieces of pumpkin goop.

Plus, I’ve seen more than my share of decaying jack-o-lanterns on neighbors’ front porches and stoops.  There IS an expiration date, people, and while a scary-faced jack-o-lantern that is caving in on itself IS even scarier than the original creation, it should probably be tossed well before Thanksgiving.  I can’t imagine it’s a fun chore to pick up something that has the consistency of a giant rotten tomato.

But mostly, I don’t want to carve my own jack-o-lantern because I don’t like scary faces.  I would’ve totally carved some happy face on the thing and it would’ve completely missed the point.  Halloween is supposed to be about scary witches and bad-luck black cats and ghosts and goblins.  Not about smiley faces.

So I wimped out in the end.  I implored Vince’s son to carve the second pumpkin, too, and he finally did.  Made the second jack-o-lantern afraid of the first one.  I thought it was clever.  And it was way better than my happy face idea.

So now we’re sort of in the Halloween spirit with two carved jack-o-lanterns gracing our doorway.  But I’ve come to realize that we’re woefully underdecorated for the holiday. Around the neighborhood, houses with strings of orange lights and blow-up ghosts on their front lawns abound.  They have Halloween-decorated wreaths on their doors.  And, if you’re lucky enough to be invited inside, they have some great Halloween decorations on their walls and tables, plus they’ve stocked up with bags full of the good candy.  In contrast, all we have is a bowl with a few expired fun-size Kit Kats. And those were probably leftover from last Halloween.

Huh.  When did it become a requirement to decorate for all these holidays?  Pretty much the only holiday I decorate for is Christmas and that alone is a big pain in the patootie.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the twinkling lights and festive atmosphere the holiday brings, but it’s still a pain to haul out all those lights and garland and wreaths and candles.

I can’t imagine decorating for Arbor Day and Valentine’s Day and Easter, too.  If I were to purchase more decorations for all these holidays, I’d just have to give up thinking that our garage could be used to house an actual car and instead we’d use it solely for holiday decoration storage.

Ah well.  Maybe those carved jack-o-lanterns will inspire me to get into the holiday spirit.  I’ll buy witchy wreaths and decorate with orange and black strings of lights.  I’ll fill the garage with more boxes of “stuff.” 

Or maybe not.  After all, unless I go out and buy some more candy, I’d have to give the Trick-or-Treaters the few expired Kit-Kats we have left.  And I really don’t want to walk around picking up bits of orange-y smooshed pieces of pumpkin goop when they smash our jack-o-lanterns in revenge for giving them crappy candy.

Plus, I don’t want to have to park in the driveway because years ago I vowed not to spend my mornings scraping snow and ice off my vehicle.  But that’s another story.

Dear Mother Nature...

Hello, lady?? It’s almost April – what’s with the weather??

Okay, I can understand a day here and there on the cool side because you’re still changing into your spring bloomers, but come on. It’s 37 degrees out there and you’re spitting snowflakes, for crying out loud! Perhaps you forgot to flip your calendar? Again: It's. Almost. April!

All I can say is that you’d better clean up your act, ma’am, or I’m afraid we’ll have no choice but to let you go. With this economy and your one-directional focus, it may not be as easy to get another gig as you might think.

I don’t believe we’re being unreasonable here as we’re certainly not expecting you to roll out the balmy 70 degree temps and full-on bright blue skies. We’re patient. We have to be – we live in the Midwest. We can give you until, oh, let’s say, May 1^st. (And that may well be pushing it given your recent performance.)

I have to admit that my impatience with your choices in temperature and precipitation may be due in part to my jumping the gun and taking my winter coat to the dry cleaners already in preparation of off-season storage. Thus, I have been forced to wear a thin raincoat for the past two days. And wearing a thin raincoat when I’m dodging snowflakes and gale-force winds does nothing for my mood. Neither does uncontrollable shivering.

Trust me, a little sunshine goes a long way toward improving dispositions around here, and I’d like to change mine to “sunny,” okay? (I’m sure Vince would appreciate that as well.)

Not only are my lips and cheeks chapping from the bitter wind, but I have to admit I’m feeling a little bitter myself. I mean, because of your actions, I’m hiding a perfectly good pedicure under heavy woolen socks! And I’d dearly love to ditch the snow boots as they are not in the least stylish or attractive.

Now we’re not completely insensitive, Mother Nature, and we do realize that you have a difficult job to do. You’re responsible for remembering which parts of the world are experiencing summer at the same time other areas of the world are in the middle of winter. Probably because of this, I’m able to enjoy pretty flowers (in photo) that can’t yet be grown in the frozen tundra that is currently Ohio. (And, thank you, Vince, for said lovely spring flowers.)

But, Ms. Nature? Can you please pony up and throw a little warmth our way? I, for one, would truly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Jane’s Domain

Workin' At The Car Wash...

We made it to March. Yeehaw! Now we have just one more month of winter to get through.

Yeah…I know, I know…spring officially arrives on March 20th. On the other hand, I can easily recall some nasty snowstorms we have endured in late March, so I’m just gonna stick with the one more month of winter theory. That way, if we don’t see another snowflake until next winter I can be happy. And if we do get dumped on again, I can just roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, it’s still winter and this is still the Midwest – whatryagonna do?!”

Sheesh. The mental hoops I make myself jump through…

Today, however, is a spectacular day. While it may not be t-shirts and flip flop weather, it’s an almost-balmy 42 degrees and with the sun shining down, I didn’t even wear my winter coat this afternoon.

I was almost tempted to wash my car, but you know as soon as I do that we’d get hit with a rogue blizzard or something. So I think I’ll leave the ol’ Mazda dirty and salt-encrusted for a couple more days.

Besides, I can’t match the car wash deal Vince got the other day.

See, we went to Newark and had dinner with his dad who told Vince that he found a cheap, er, inexpensive do-it-yourself car wash and cleaned his car for a mere quarter. Not that we didn’t believe him, but here in Columbus, the do-it-yourself car washes won’t even dribble a little water from the hose until you plug in at least a buck and a quarter in change. And you’d better be prepared to give up several more dollars worth of quarters before you’re finished.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the do-it-yourself car washes. I used to be when I was fanatical about keeping my new car sparkling clean. But since my vehicle is older (and so am I), I’ve become, well, lazy. And I no longer carry around a bagful of quarters. Instead, I bring my car to the automatic car wash place that costs at least $8 a pop.

But I get to sit inside my car in comfort and watch other people scrub the wheels and windows and then my car is magically transported into the dark interior (“put your vehicle in Neutral”) and then foamy soap sprays out and envelopes me in a big pink cloud and then the red felt monster does its shimmy-shake thing over my car and then I arrive at the air dryer that is so powerful it practically sucks the whole vehicle up into its gaping maw before it spits it out and stops and then two towel boys frenetically start toweling off the excess water droplets.

I then get to drive away happy with a clean car (once I put my vehicle in Drive, of course) and the towel boys get to deal with soggy towels.

Now I don’t indulge in car washes very often and by the time I do take my car in, it’s so crusty that it’s hard to tell what color it’s supposed to be, so I figure it’s well worth the eight bucks.

Vince, on the other hand, doesn’t like to pay that much for a car wash. Neither does his dad. This would truly be an example of “like father, like son.”

So his dad directed us to the cheap, er, inexpensive car wash. Now, it was dark out. And it was definitely not a balmy 42 degrees. And I forgot to wear my winter gloves. So I elected to stay inside the car while father and son bonded over the scrubber brush.

Now, I’d love to report that the car was sparkling clean without a speck of dirt after the twenty-five cent car wash. It wasn’t. I’d also love to report that it only cost twenty-five cents. But it didn’t. They were forced to feed another quarter into the machine. Vince’s dad maintains that it was because Vince’s car was especially dirty.

And then we had to drive across the street to the gas station so they could clean the windows with a squeegee and paper towels. For free. (Otherwise, it would’ve cost a lot more at the car wash.)

I’m not certain that the squeegee and paper towels actually helped the situation because there were a lot of streaks and dirt left when they were finished, but (a) it wasn’t my car, and (b) I didn’t have to help. So it was all good.

And the upshot is that Vince has a semi-clean car and it didn’t break the bank. Even more wondrous is that he didn’t incite Mother Nature into sending a rogue blizzard our way. So I’m pretty grateful about that.

Let’s hope I have the same luck when I next wash my car. Or else you can blame the rogue blizzard on me.

Happy March!

Do NOT Follow Me!

An hour and thirty minutes. Correction: an hour and thirty-TWO minutes. That’s how long it took me to traverse the 17 miles to work today.

First it was raining, and then it was snowing and then we were getting some mixture between rain and snow, which felt a little like someone flinging ice chips at my windshield.

Before venturing out, I carefully listened to the traffic reports and then mapped out my route. Immediately I discarded the idea of traveling 71 South since it was closed halfway to downtown due to high standing water. I didn’t want to (a) sit in traffic, or (b) float my way downtown. Perhaps now I see a reason to own one of those strange-looking amphibious automobiles like we saw at last year’s Auto Show, after all. Wonder if they come equipped with snow tires, too?

I left home approximately 15 minutes earlier than normal, which as soon as I saw the weather conditions, knew wasn’t early enough – but I thought I could maybe get to work somewhere close to my regular start time. I’m either completely delusional or have somehow inexplicably retained my childlike positive outlook on life.

Yeah, I’d go with completely delusional, too.

Nevertheless, I gamely started out. I left an assured clear distance between me and the driver in front of me. I didn’t speed – not that it was possible to speed – unless 5 miles an hour can remotely be considered speeding.

When I reached the ramp I normally take, I saw an interminable line of red brake lights, so I elected to go straight, which meant that I’d be driving South on High Street. This actually wasn’t a bad decision. Sort of.

You ever see that cartoon, Family Circus? When little Billy heads out the door of his home and, instead of walking in a straight line to his destination, takes all sorts of little detours so he can explore everything in his neighborhood and you can tell where he’s been by all the little black dashes in the drawing?

Well, I sort of felt like that this morning. I was on one road, and then diverted to another road when I saw police cruiser lights ahead. Assuming there was an accident, I veered off to avoid sitting in traffic. I took so many lefts and rights on my convoluted route, I can be assured that nobody was following me!

Eventually, I ended up on the Ohio State campus, which was definitely not where I wanted to be. There are way too many pedestrians down there – and they have the right-of-way. I didn’t think it was a good idea to start my day by plowing into a college student.

So I turned left somewhere in the middle of campus and then turned right again. And, finally ended up on a road that heads into downtown.

If someone had been mapping my route with black ink, it would either have resembled little Billy’s convoluted journey – or a big plate of spaghetti.

While I never sat in non-moving traffic, I probably would’ve gotten to my destination about the same time as if I’d just stayed in the long line behind all the brake lights on the freeway.

And the weather now? Nuthin’. There is no snow other than a mere dusting on the flora and fauna. There is not a speck of snow on the roads. It’s not raining. And no one is flinging ice chips at any windows whatsoever.

Are you kidding me?? If it’s gonna take me an hour and thirty-TWO minutes to get to work, I would appreciate it if we had at least SOME blizzard-like conditions out there!

Ah well. I’ll get over it. Allow me to wish you a happy weekend. Stay warm. And may it not take you an hour and thirty-two minutes to get to your destination. (Unless it’s significantly more than 17 miles away!)

Who's Sick of Winter?

So…winter came back with a vengeance. Snow and ice. Freezing temperatures. Y’know – all the stuff to let us know that it is still FEBRUARY, after all, and we shouldn’t expect to be wearing those t-shirts and flip flops again anytime soon.

Nevertheless, on Sunday I believed my own hype about our mid-winter reprieve and ran out the door on my way to church wearing a lightweight corduroy jacket. No hat. No gloves. No wool scarf. Vince, wearing his sensible winter jacket, tapped the weather icon on his handy-dandy iPhone (SO glad he got one…), and turned the screen so I could see that it was a mere 31 degrees. The non-verbal subtext was that wearing a lightweight corduroy jacket was a stupid move.

Okay, okay...I admit it wasn’t perhaps the smartest move on my part. I guess I should have listened to the weather report before venturing outdoors.

While we weren’t bombarded by enough snow to measure it in feet rather than in inches, it was enough to snarl up traffic yesterday. Apparently there is at least one patch of ice on each of the major roadways that snowplows are required to miss so that traffic is forced to slow to a crawl. And that very ice patch on 315 South was the one some car had to slide on and then skid into the car nearest them and cause a wreck. And it certainly wasn’t the only one. I swear there was at least one accident on each of the routes I could possibly take to get downtown so that I had zero possibilities of getting to work in under an hour.

And I had only allowed an extra 10 minutes for foolish drivers. Silly me.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the driver who slid into the ice patch and caused the wreck in the first place. Gotta be grateful for the small things, right?

Today, however, I was able to get to work on time. Not that there weren’t the same problems that we experienced yesterday. But I just lucked out and picked a different route that didn’t have any major traffic snarls. Sometimes it’s a crapshoot and at the very last possible second I veer into another lane to take a different route. And then I cross my fingers and hope that I made the right choice.

Today, thankfully, I made the right choice. I congratulated myself all the way downtown, particularly whenever the traffic report aired. Every time the announcer reported the ever-increasing backup on 315 South, I gleefully pumped my fist in the air. Sad, huh? When this part of the winter rolls around, we take even the most miniscule of victories to lofty levels.

Who knows? Tomorrow I may even be bumping knuckles with myself for having picked out a pair of matching socks.

Sigh. Will spring NEVER arrive?

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?

Mid-Winter Reprieve

I’m trying not to get too excited about the 50+ degree weather we’ve had the past couple days because I know that winter is just waiting to return with a vengeance. It’s simply the way it is around here in mid-winter in Ohio. We get a few days of nearly balmy weather and people start running around in shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops.

Come on, people! Fifty degrees is NOT flip-flop weather.

Yesterday I even saw a bunch of guys on motorcycles roaring past me on the highway and all I could think was, Yeah, yeah, it’s 59 degrees out, but, dudes – admit it – you HAVE TO BE freezing!

Not that the dudes responded, of course, since I was just thinking that in my head. If they had responded, I’d have been a little freaked. Or maybe a LOT freaked. Because then I’d have to acknowledge that I was hearing voices in my head…

Now I have to admit at least they aren’t as crazy as those crazy people who belong to crazy Polar Bear clubs and plunge into ice-covered waters in the middle of zero degree temperatures. Who is crazy enough to do this? And, okay, so some of those organizations raise money for charity, but still. I’ll stay bundled up at home and will send a check, okay?

At any rate, the guys on the motorcycles weren’t the only ones behaving as if they’d never experienced warmer weather. Even Vince was not immune to the hints of springtime to come. We drove the mile or so to our destination last night with the windows open! Since the sun had nearly set and the temps were dropping, he raised the window on the driver’s side. But he still left the window behind me open. That is, until I shot him a dirty look and said, “Do I look hot over here or something”?

Fortunately, Vince is getting really good at understanding the difference between my asking him questions that necessitate answers and questions that are purely rhetorical where it’s probably not a good idea to respond.

So he didn’t say a word – he merely closed the window.

Thank. You.

Now I won’t say that I haven’t appreciated the warmer weather myself. I’m happy to see that all the soot-encrusted black snow has melted – for two reasons. 1) it’s ugly. And 2), it has freed up room for the next round of winter snow and ice to accumulate.

I have also been able to ditch my bulky winter coat for a day or two. Yesterday I wore my lightweight spring raincoat and was surprised at how much less confining it felt – especially in the car where I usually feel like I’m being strangled between my bulky layers of clothing, winter coat, knit scarf and the seatbelt. Somewhere around the mid-point between home and work I start clawing at the scarf to loosen it so I can breathe a little easier.

And today I didn’t even wear an outer coat! Instead, I wore a suede jacket. Now, true enough, I am wearing a turtleneck sweater underneath the suede jacket, so I’m not exactly dressed for summer. But it’s a start.

Of course, you know what this means, don’t you? People will start coming down with sore throats and colds and all manner of nasty bugs.

Why is that, exactly? I’ve never been able to figure out why people start getting sick when we have a couple days of warmer weather in mid-winter.

Maybe there is no actual scientific correlation between warmer weather and illness, but I’m not taking any chances. I think we’ll up our daily intake of Vitamin C, Echinacea, and Airborne. I’ll be using antibacterial hand gel like I have stock in the company.

And if all that doesn’t work and I feel a scratchy throat and a congested schnoz coming on, I might even go so far as to make an appointment with a witch doctor – maybe he’ll have some magical potions for kicking the common cold.

In the meantime, I’m heading outside. Anyone have some sunscreen handy?