Snow Country for Cold Men

As I trudged through the snow and ice with Mark in Chicago on December 26th trying to find the train stop at the close of our Christmas adventures, I thought to myself, "Everything from my toes to my teeth to my hair follicles is freezing right now. I can't feel my face. I shall never complain about Georgian forty-degree winters again."

Even as our plane touched down to snow flurries in Atlanta, I reckoned "Ah, well, I guess I missed our yearly winter snowfall."

Oh, how wrong I was.

When you live in Georgia you learn to become immune to the ominous reports the weather channel doles out when they think there is a chance of snow. If I had a dollar for every day the Board of Education pre-emptively canceled school in a frenzy because of the foreshadowed blizzard only to wake up to a perfectly un-precipitated day, I would have, like, twenty bucks. (Okay, maybe that is not a dramatic enough example...but you get it. And twenty bucks is nothing to sneeze at. It buys you almost two whole movie tickets as long as you don't want to see it in 3-D.)

So when I kept hearing rumblings of snowfall last weekend, I didn't really start getting my hopes up until mid-Sunday. The weather channels seemed sure of it, and I was texting my fellow co-workers throughout the day about what the implications would be for the following work day. As the predicted 7:00 p.m. beginning of the snow came and passed without so much as a flurry, I started to become grumpy.

"I'll bet nothing is going to happen and I got all excited for no reason," I pouted grouchily to Mark.

And then around 8:30 the skies opened up and I have never seen so much snowfall in all my life. We were fascinated, the cats were fascinated- we just sat there in awe watching the world turn white in record time.

"Well, shit," Mark said as we gaped at the window. "We probably should have picked up some more stuff at Wal-Mart."

"Yeah, and maybe not have called everyone we saw there who were stocking up on supplies dumb and panicky..." I said sheepishly.

When we went to bed the snow was still coming down steadily, and we woke up to what we later learned was just shy of nine inches of snow. Mid-afternoon we bundled up and ventured out to one of the main roads close to where we live to see if we could find any sort of life form. God Bless America, because while there was not a car in sight, the Waffle House on the corner was open and ready for business. It was comforting to know that even in a snowstorm, the sign on their door held true: "We've got you covered. Scattered, smothered, and covered."

The notion of being snowed in sounds wonderful and romantic, sipping hot cocoa by a crackling fire and reading stories and poetry to one another by candlelight as you gaze into each other's eyes. In actuality, the closest we had to cocoa was Diet Coca-Cola, a crackling fire doesn't really work out in a second-story apartment with no fireplace, and we never lost power so the reading by candlelight turned into playing hours on end of Donkey Kong Country on the Wii. Sensual. And when I tried to gaze into Mark's eyes, he just said, "What is wrong with you? You're creeping me out."

The other problem you encounter when Georgia gets subjected to abnormal winter weather elements is that the lovely, powdery snow quickly gets buried under a layer of ice that stabs your ankles as you sink through eight inches of it and then when you complain about it a certain husband of yours says, "Well, maybe you should have rethought the outfit." Which he was probably right, because my winter weather ensemble consisted of sneakers, black leggings and shorts (a look I would NEVER sport in any other circumstances), striped knee socks, several layers of mismatched shirts and coats, a further mismatched scarf, and an even further mismatched head-warmer. I looked like a walking episode of What Not To Wear: I Live In The South and Don't Have A Clue How To Dress Myself For The Snow Or Really At All For That Matter Edition.

As the next few days progressed, alternating between slightly above freezing temperatures that slowly melted the snow and temperatures in the 'teens that just re-froze it into a precarious sheet of ice over everything, navigating anything on foot or in a car became damn near impossible. It is a wonder I did not break my ass bone.

Ultimately, the better part of last week saw me spending the majority of it as my alias Diddy Kong and Mark and I dipping into the Island of Misfit Foods as we began resorting to eating things that had been hanging out the pantry for quite some time. I was pretty excited to finally get out of the house and back to work on Thursday.

And then I quickly realized, what was I thinking? Work sucks! Why didn't I appreciate the time off when I had it? Man, I really need a break...

Two Thousanleven.

A week into 2011 and I am still working off my holiday hangover. No, this doesn't mean that I went on some kind of crazy drinking bender from Halloween through New Year's. If I had, I would probably be dead and you would have gotten some far more exciting blog posts (from when I was drunk, not some kind of creepy, post-death blog haunts). 

This hangover is the kind where I become bitter towards how holidays fall on the calender. How is it fair that we get three magical months containing Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas before crashing down onto the cold and depressing months of January, February, and March? Yes, each of these months has a holiday. A LAME holiday. Let's review:

New Year's. A whole lot of build-up with a minimal yield of excitement. You spend the whole night drinking and watching a ball on T.V. Then you finally get to do a countdown for the clock to turn midnight and...nothing really changes. Happy New Year! Now you get to date all of your papers and checks wrong for the next month and try to figure out if you are going to go with "Twenty Eleven" or "Two Thousand Eleven" and how to say the latter without it coming out as "Two Thousanleven." So many syllables. I think I'll just pick a time each day to get wigged out about when it finally hits. "Three! Two! One! Woo! It's 2:34 p.m.!" I don't see people getting annoyed by that at all.

Valentine's Day. It's only made for people who have a significant other and even then there is no guarantee you will get a good Valentine's day. (Though if other people's men are like mine and got them a wireless router for Christmas, they will be needing to do some Valentine's Day damage control. And Mark, I know that you will end up reading this. I love you and your gift to me on our first married Christmas of faster internet was, ah, beautiful and romantic. Just know that chocolate, jewelry, stuffed animals, and spa treatments are too. 'Nuff said.) Frankly, I can't fully enjoy a holiday I feel apologetic for knowing that there is such a strong movement against it. It's more like I Am Sorry I Am Not Single And Get To Enjoy This Holiday Day. And you certainly don't want to be that jerk that gushes on and on about how in love you are and your Valentine's Day was just perfect to a single or recently broken-up with friend who will just sit there and have one of those daydreams where they picture themselves strangling you like in the movies. It's a very precarious holiday. Very much indeed.

St. Patrick's Day. I don't get this holiday. You wear green and get drunk. I can do this any of the other 364 days of the year. And you run the risk of forgetting to wear greenand people continually pinching the bajeezus out of you all day. How is this even fun? Plus, we just stole it from the Irish and bastardized it like so many other holidays we celebrate here. Talk to me again when there are real leprechauns who take you across real rainbows to real pots of gold. Now that's a holiday.

I guess I should be appreciative that we have any holidays at all these months and take what I can get. It's not like May, June, or August have much going for them either. (Except August has my birthday, but that's become somewhat of a lame holiday as well.) But at least they are warm. Now I am just stuck inside watching T.V. But at least Grover likes T.V. too.

Beth on a Stick

Alright, enough of this holiday hiatus. I have officially survived, relatively unscathed and only minimally frostbitten. Let me tell you though, Chicago and South Bend are cold. And at a high of 25 degrees, I heard from multiple northerners that it was "surprisingly warm."

...WTF? Note to self: never live north of the Mason-Dixon line.

All in all, I had two wonderful Christmases- a faux one and a real one. My family and I designated December 18th "Faux Christmas," with Santa obliging to make a visit early and us going through the usual Christmas morning routine. We woke up and Dad filmed me and Kate like he does every year when we come out to see what bounty Santa hath brought forth that year. (Our geek-out factor has only diminished slightly as the years have gone by- we still run out and squeal "Santa came! Santa came!" I don't know if I should be proud or disturbed by this.) Then we open gifts and go through stockings, which now always include scratch-off lottery tickets but absolutely does not mean we are hillbillies with a gambling problem. We just support education. I also am going to be a scratch-off katrillionaire.

We then flew out for the real Christmas with Mark's family, and by comparison to my usual Christmas celebrations it was fairly tame. The highlights included going ice skating (my butt and the ice got to be besties), going to Christmas Eve Catholic mass (I grew up Methodist. Catholicism vs. Methodism = similar cast, two totally different productions.), and several huge family dinner parties (I am such a charmer. They like me! They really like me!).

The sadness of being apart from my family really only hit me when we returned home the day after Christmas. Having to get back to work while they were just starting our normal trip sucked to say the least. However, to keep my spirits up, they created what we lovingly deemed Beth on a Stick. They basically took my pictures and taped it to one of the handheld fans we used as programs from the wedding. Kate periodically sent me text picture messages of all the fun things I was doing via Beth on a Stick. So rather than trying to describe it, I have decided to present some of the highlights. Enjoy.

Beth on a Stick : What I Did(ish) This Christmas

A Photo Essay.

...with lots of subtitles and punctuation in the title like real artists do!

On the car ride, gearing up
for the big trip.

Spending a little quality time with my cousins

Wouldn't be complete without
playing some cards

Ready to open some gifts!

My grandpa was highly amused
by my gift of a bathroom aid called
"Trap a Crap"

Got to add the last piece to
the jigsaw puzzle

Getting some wisdom from Grandpa

In Kentucky now with my
favorite rolls in the world

And the Beth was hung by the
stocking with care. Merry Christmas
to all, and to all a good night.