Ugh,

I am not whining, I promise, but this weather simply won’t work for me.  I heard a man at the store yesterday say “oh, I don’t do cold”.  Well, what the heck do you think we’re doing, Mister?  What did he mean by this?  How is he getting around it?

We all know this is coming every year.  I have gotten better at it but the lack of outdoor exercise, absence of sunlight, vitamin D, green trees, flowers, lawn mowing, absence of the smell of grass just gets to me after a while.

Saturday, the unthinkable happened, and that beastly, feces throwing mammal, General E. Lee, our Georgia groundhog, predicted another six weeks of this limbo. I love groundhogs, have raised them, honk and wave at them when I pass them on the road and never wish any animal harm…except this one.  I think his stint of fame is done and it’s high time to usher in a new one.  His “wildlife sanctuary” is a particularly horrible place I’d like to see shut down as well, but I won’t get on my soap box. But don’t give them money.

I have certainly bemoaned  this season before and won’t be redundant and complain about it again.  So, constructively, this is what I’m doing to keep from crawling under the bed and crying:

1. I ordered chicks.  This is really going to piss off the Goose, who feels we should be scaling back on all things animal.  I ordered top hat babies, sure to thrill and delight all.  The thought that they will be mailed to me on February 27th and, once more, the very proper man from the post office will call me and tell me I have a package that is making noise, this makes me happy.  I want chickens who strut around like they’re proud and look like David Bowie.  I want rock stars.
2. I cleaned out my pantries and put in fabulous wrapping paper as shelf paper and I feel that if a surprise inspection by Martha Stewart should happen I would feel proud of my self before I ushered her rude self out of the house. (When reading back over this without my glasses, I thought I had written that I had cleaned out my panties, not pantries.  This has caused me to want to make a trip to Victoria’s Secret, which might just cheer me up, so hooray for poor eyesight.)
3. I am looking at greenhouse catalogues.  This is a yearly ritual wherein I make the Goose drive me past several great greenhouses I know of and I say “gosh, her husband must really love her” and I sigh.  So far, it’s not working but I am adding the bonus pressure of telling him that Tortellini could live in there in the winter and save all that money we spend heating the barn.  I think if I could root around in there in the dirt I’d be happier.   
4. I go to Pikes and walk around in their greenhouse and just smell things. I do this because I do not have one of my own…
5. I bake.  I can’t cook but I can make a cake.  Pink ones with pink icing, lemon pound cakes, chocolate with coffee icing.  I don’t even like cake, I just like to smell them and see them sitting on the counter on a pretty cake stand.  Somebody should probably stop me.  Cricket’s boyfriend commented yesterday that I was sure baking a lot and Cricket told him “she does it when she gets sad in the winter”.  She said it like one would say “poor ol’ Memaw, bless her heart, she likes to make puppy noises at the dinner table”.  Like I was pitiful or something.  All this baking really doesn’t help because I then feel grouchy that I have to clean up the pans and the entire mood is broken. Maybe I’ll just remove this one.
6. I bought a shirt so bright that the Goose refused to be seen with me in it. It WAS an ugly shirt so I braved the cold and returned it. That didn’t help that much either.

   

7. I keep “birdsong radio” going at all times.  I am starting to whistle back and have been craving sunflower seeds.
8. I am eating pills, rubbing on cream and keeping tablets under my tongue of mass quantities of vitamin D.  So far, I just smell like old person cream.
9. I made jello shots in happy summer flavors like mango and lemonade.  This turned out so terribly that I can’t comment on it here without someone calling AA and turning me in as a suspect.  Let’s just say I’m on the wagon for a month or so and will never partake of jello again …

10. I’d like to come up with something else, but it’s cloudy and it’s cold, and, as happy a person as I am, I am definitely in a winter funk. I’d like to figure out why this number 10 won’t line up with the others, but really, does it matter in this dark and dreary world?

Even in my brightest sweater and even with the “year of the scarf”, I’m sick of this mess.

I know there is an army of my friends who will give me a good amen. I’d prefer they give me airline tickets to somewhere where the sun actually shines. Ugh.