Results of the "Favorite Season" Survey

Hello, neighbors! The following are the results of the poll where I asked you what your favorite season is. There were five options because I felt it necessary to differentiate between real winter and the what those pansies in southern states or countries in warmer climates call "winter". It turns out it didn't matter, because no one chose either winter anyway.

What, Dear Reader, is your favorite season?

Winter	(0%)
Winter in a place where that actually means snow and cold	(0%)
Spring	(42%)
Summer	(0%)
Autumn	(57%)

Autumn won, though not by much. In my humble opinion, Autumn is by far the most superior season, closely followed by REAL winter with the snow and the blizzards and the ice and the bitterly cold winds. There is a certain beauty to a particularly harsh winter, and the way the sun sparkles on the snow clinging to otherwise bare tree branches is sometimes breathtaking. Furthermore, I enjoy wearing sweaters, boots, scarves, and mittens. And when I wear a coat, I have more pockets for things like keys and candy. However, autumn offers many of the same pocket/mitten/scarf/flannel shirt opportunities, but the warm colors of the leaves, the crisp air, and the sound of crunching leaves provide such gorgeous scenery and contentedness, that it is at the top of my seasons list.

Things That are Things That I Think I Should Share

1. Modern Nativity: Apparently my sister enjoyed it so much, she watched it twice. It was cute, so I'll give it that.



 I kind of feel like it is a giant commercial, though, so that might be what is stopping me from enjoying it as much as others seem to be.

2. Dexter: So I've been watching this recently, and no wonder people like it. It is very engrossing, but not so much so that I have to really focus on what's going on. This is good because as you may know, my students are rubbing off on me and I am beginning to have a shorter and shorter attention span. This might be because I cater to kiddos, and we change gears about every 10 minutes.....Proof of that is right now. I am off topic. Dexter is a decent show, and if you are looking for a new show to get into, even though I am only partway through season 2, I would recommend it.

3. "Open Relationship": Every once and a while when I hear the phrase "open relationship", this  starts playing in my head. It took a little bit of creative search words to find it again, but VOILA:






I think it is clever, anyway. Catchy. Makes me giggle.

4. Danny Friedman and the Beastman Band: The couple I used to babysit for had the most adorable baby! And the guy, unbeknown to me all that time, was in this band.


http://www.beastmanband.com/

 Might I suggest "Lord, I'm a Chicken" or "Woman, I don't want no baby comin' out of you!"...

5. Snow: Due to the snow, we got out 2 hours early today! WOOHOO Early release! Good news is I got to go home early. Bad news is, this could screw up my weeks lessons. Good news, I got to chill and watch some television shows. Bad news is I kind of goofed around and got a fraction of the things done that I could have. Good news, I am feeling pretty relaxed. Sigh.

6. Retro Folgers Commercials: Another one for your enjoyment.






See what she did there? She took his infuriating demeanor and turned it right back around on him! Doesn't feel so good to be on the other side, does it, Harold? And like I said to Harvey and other husband, "Why don't you make your own stupid coffee?"

Call Me Ms. Crankypants

So I get home tonight, and the plow has gone by, completely covering the entrance to our driveway. Since I drive a little car, there was no way I could get enough power in 1st gear making a left turn into the driveway to get over that hump.

So I parked in the neighbor's driveway, got the handy-dandy shovel out of my trunk that my parents just bought me last weekend, and got to work. But I soon realized that not only had the plow blocked the entrance to the driveway, but somehow the opening to the driveway, between the two giant heaps of snow, had gotten narrower. This meant I had to not only clear the end of the driveway, but make the hack away at the heaps of snow taller than me in order to widen the entrance.

So here I am, chopping, hacking, huffing, and puffing, and basically getting nowhere. Let's remember that I'm an asthmatic with a bad shoulder here. People are walking by me, clearly struggling, slipping in the muck, and making little progress. No one stops to help. A man in a truck honked at me and yelled, but I'm not sure why. Maybe he was so offended by my ineffective shoveling he felt the need to express his anger? The man across the street came out for a few minutes and was snow blowing. I waved to him, and he looked at me and turned back into the house.

I finally start to make some progress, and that cursed plow goes by again! BOOO!

And here's the kicker. The downstairs neighbor's friend who parks in our driveway and walks to work, but always ignores me (even the time the garage door was open and I couldn't get the release latch myself---I said, "excuse me, could you please help me?" and he didn't even look at me.) came back to get his car. Now the last incident, perhaps I could brush off if he had a hearing problem, but he could clearly see me struggling here, and he walked RIGHT BY. He didn't even acknowledge me. I assumed he would get into his car, try to leave, and realize he would need to get out and help if he ever wanted to leave, because the rate I was going, he was going to be stuck watching me until morning.

But he didn't drive his car down the driveway for another 10 minutes or so. I think he went back behind the house and sat in his car! Is that possible? Would he do that? Then when he finally came out, I was beginning to see progress again. Now he HAS to acknowledge me because I am standing right in his way with a shovel, and I turned around and looked at him.

So he opens the car door and says that he is going to try to get some speed and plow out, and maybe he'd make some tire tracks and I could get into the driveway. Then he gets back in the car. And that is exactly what he does in his big car. He got up some speed and plowed through my hole. And he got out.

Unfortunately, part of his car smashed into one of the hills on the side of the driveway, causing it to partially collapse, once again making the opening too narrow for me to get to. By now I am becoming irate. Why is no one helping me? Would it have killed that man that parks in our driveway to take a couple of shovels full of snow off the driveway? Could that man across the street have offered to help? Or ANY of those people that walked by have stopped?

I FINALLY get the opening big enough and the snow low enough that I think I can get in. So I go for it, and I clear! Then I got stuck on the driveway. I was so mad, I yelled at the car, bounced in my seat and banged on the steering wheel. I had to get out and shovel around the car. Then I had to rock back and forth, and I made almost no progress. This meant I had to take a break for a minute with the car off to fight off tears of frustration. I just wanted to go inside and eat dinner!

Eventually I got up the driveway and into the house, only to discover that my downstairs neighbor had been home the whole time. Maybe he didn't see me shoveling at the end of the driveway, but surely he at least heard me struggling with my car in the driveway?

I was going to do the dishes today, but I think instead I am going to talk a hot bath, do my crossword puzzle, and go to bed early. I feel like Ms. Crankypants right now.


Also, this is a thing:

The Mighty Siege of '10

Minnesota was under attack for a little over 24 hours this past weekend.  Between the non-stop snow, the terrifyingly low temperatures, and the unrelenting wind, many Minnesotans chose to withdraw immediately from the battle.

Many veteran Minnesotans are comparing this storm to the Great Halloween Snow Storm of ’91. With over 28 inches of snow, the Halloween storm was indeed historic, although it did not keep Minnesotans from Trick-or-Treating. This most recent battle, however fierce, did not manage to pile on nearly as much snow, with current estimates running between 18 and 25 inches, depending on locations throughout south-western Minnesota.

The storm laid siege to Minnesotans beginning Friday night, and held on through early Sunday morning. Many battle-hardened “snow storm troopers” ventured out, despite warnings from family, friends, and the Minnesotan leader, Governor Tim Pawlenty. Children, bundled up to their eyeballs, waddled through thigh-deep snow in order to give their parents some sort of reprieve from their general squirminess caused by the storm. Or perhaps the parents were sending their children out as ambassadors to sooth the storm.

In the Twin Cities, plows were called off the road because there was too much snow. Some snuffed at the paradoxical command, and it looked for a moment as if the snow would win.

Minnesotans, however, tend to be of hearty stock, and managed to hold out against the storm. While the battle of Troy, as depicted in Homer’s The Iliad ended tragically, Minnesotans triumphed. We managed to stare that storm in the eye and wait it out. To celebrate, as soon as they were allowed to, Minnesotans scurried out to drive to work, run errands, and even go Christmas shopping.

Some exciting things witnessed by this reporter:

*Children “playing” out in the snow. Most of these children were so bundled up they could hardly move, and stood staring at each other and at cars skidding by at 5 mph.

*Many, MANY cars in ditches

*7 foot piles of snow down the center of streets in downtown Rochester

*A Santa underneath a bridge on Cedar Northbound, attempting to remove the ice from his windshield wipers. It was a bad day for Santa to take the car, and not the sleigh.

Fake Spring Brings the Bugs Indoors

So fake spring has come to an end in Minnesota, bringing the much beloved winter back into our lives. There is this woman in my Schools and Society class from California, and one day she was chatting about how nice it was that spring was finally here. Part of me - the sadistic part - wanted to let her continue raving about the weather which would surely only get better from here on out. Unfortunately, I felt it was my duty to tell her the truth about Fake Spring.

You see, in Minnesota, the snow melts sometime around mid-March. The temperature rises to about 45 degrees F, and Minnesotans rejoice, shedding their heavy boots and fluffy winter coats. Some of us, myself included, stop wearing coats altogether. The damp and squishy ground is sufficiently disgusting so as to raise our spirits, and we began chatting with our fellow Minnesotans about the "heat wave". Many men even chose to begin wearing shorts. This is spring weather.

The thing that a true Minnesotan knows that the newcomers do not know, however, is that this is Fake Spring. The snow will melt, the sun will come out, and you may even sweat from walking outside in pants and a long sleeve shirt. A real Minnesotan knows that it is not time to pack away the winter gear just yet. A true Minnesotan knows that sometime in beginning to mid April, winter will return.

A delightful example of this: Last week I drove my car with the windows down, soaking up vitamin D (hoping to make up for the deficiency from the last 900 months or so) and feeling rather warm in a t-shirt and jeans. Today, April 1st, it is snowing. To be fair, I was a little off when trying to tell this woman in my class about Fake Spring. It actually began last night, which was technically still March. Oops.

The point is, Minnesotans know to enjoy this tease from Mother Nature. She may think she is playing a nasty joke on us, but we make the best of it. Naturally there will be some grumbling later today about the weather, but we secretly love it. If you are from Minnesota, you can deny it all you want, but I know you love the end of Fake Spring, the return of winter, and the masochistic wait for real spring.

Anyway, if you are here, happy back to winter, and if you are somewhere warm, I don't want to hear about it. I am going to enjoy my slushy white world where things have just begun to come back to life, but have been brutally frozen to death by cruel Mother Nature.

That's the other thing, see? Fake Spring lures the plants and animals out of hibernation, then ambushes them with sleet and snow, killing a good chunk of the gardens and bugs. Also, it drives a lot of bugs into the house. This means that my family will have to begin vacuuming the ceiling for those Asian beetles that look like ladybugs. These things look adorable and are supposedly good luck and all, but they just stream in through the siding and itty bitty cracks in the window, then our ceiling becomes a giant meet and greet for these things. Occasionally a box elder bug joins the fun.

Beetle #1: Hey, Sue! Isn't it great to get out of the cold and walk around upside down on this giant white surface?

Sue the Ladybug: Why yes! It sure is! That Fake Spring fools me every year! Hey look! It's Bob and Mike and Lois and Allie and Marcus and Greg and Tina!

Beetle #1: Let's all go party over by the light. We should probably just congregate in a small area and move around to make it look like we are planning something.

Sue the Ladybug: Hello Brett the Box Elder Bug! Would you like to join us?

Brett: No think you. Me and my buddies are going to crawl up into beds and nestle into blankets to scare the bejeezus out of the people that live here. Nothing's funner than seeing them scream when we're the first thing they see in the morning or when we get under the covers then crawl on their bare skin while they try to sleep!


So yeah. I am looking forward to vacuuming up Sue and Brett and Company, but not as much as I am looking forward to driving on the slippery roads again!

My Cruel but Lovely Mistress

Montreal is a wonderful city full of surprises. When I awoke to see the streets and sidewalks had been replaced by undisturbed whiteness and snow clung to every branch and windowsill, I was struck by the magic of Montreal's winter wonderland. With a warmed heart and a twinkle in my eye, I admired the near perfect scene from my window. Of course, eventually I had to leave the house, and expecting the worst, I bundled myself up in many layers and wrapped a scarf around my face. When at last I opened the door to the outside after waddling down the stairs, I was pleasantly surprised yet again my the relative warmth and stillness of the air.

Walking to the bus stop proved to be a bit of a challenge. While the city was beyond lovely in its pristine frozen state and the air did not immediately freeze my skin, the sidewalks were atrociously unfit for pedestrians. As I slipped and slid around on the ice, walking in the strange way a person only walks when on ice, I would straighten up whenever it seemed I was about to hit a solid piece of concrete. Unfortunately, I hit black ice more than once. Fortunately, I managed to avoid at least six possible concussions and three broken bones by flailing my arms and bending my knees in a ridiculous manner. I couldn't help but chuckle at the double edged blade that is Montreal. First, Mme Montreal gives me the gift of the most beautiful winter scenery. Then, after she has lured me out of my safe and cozy abode, she tries to kill me.

Once on the bus, I felt a bit safer, although the magical snow had naturally slowed public transportation.

Oh Montreal! How I will miss you in all your cruel beauty!