Oh, Winter, You Disappointing Whore AND Spring, You Elusive Minx

Is it weird that I have to google my blog name to find my site online? Maybe if I visited more often, I’d have it bookmarked. Idiot.

I admit it I have some sort of sicko love for winter. It’s conditional. I love the cold. I love the icy, dry cold. I love snow storms and being socked in for a day or two, with a full fridge and plenty of logs to burn. I like my hair in winter, I like that I don’t sweat nearly as much. I like to layer.

I won’t indulge those who cannot endure a 40 degree day without shaking their mittened fists to the skies. Those who cannot WAIT until there is a 68 degree day in January, even though it’s miserable, windy and raining. Yet, to the huddled masses, yearning to breath free of fashionable scarves and layers, it’s a Beautiful Day, because it’s WARM. People, how did we get to this place where a nasty, windswept humid day of sideways rain (or better yet, the fine-mist, that does your hair something special) is the day you choose over the sunny, snow-duned sparkly days? Is it the labor of snow-removal? You and I both know you have at least 5 teenagers with broad shoulders and their own shovels in your ‘hood. And, you know you will put on your boots and search them out if one doesn’t show up at your door first thing… so that argument’s not allowed. I’m talking balls to the wall beautiful day. Sun shining. Snow stuck to trees, noses, everything. Sparkling. Enjoy it people. There’s sparkle in the snow, find it, for fuck’s sake.

Well, this Winter, along with last Winter, I couldn’t find it. The sparkle, or lack thereof. Not here, anyway. Gray cloudy gray, cloudy rain gray cloudy, rain… was the haiku for these recent winters. The mere mention of snow, and I would run to the Acme… and then nothing but a sugar-coating of snow would fall overnight, and I’d have mean, nasty, snarling children to send to school for the three-thousandth consecutive day in a row. No snow days ever again. I firmly believe the Mid-Atlantic has turned sub-tropical, and we shall never again have a proper snowstorm. What am I going to do with all of this food in my fridge? My kids have sledded ONCE in their lives.  And the big one is almost 10… ONCE! By ten, I was careening down steep embankments (sans headgear), across a wide parking lot, and directly into the frozen creek… over and over and over again. I’m not sure my almost 10 year old can even steer a flexible flyer. I’m not even sure his 6 year old brother knows the color of snow.

This post was originally written a month ago, but I really wanted to give this winter a fighting chance. It’s now the end of March, and I’ve had it with the woulda, coulda, shoulda these Winters have been. If you live in an area like New England, or the Mid-West, than the above is completely inapplicable to you, so nevermind.

March is my least favorite month precisely because of the reasons above. It rarely snows here, but it’s sure as hell dreary. Every Fucking Day. It’s also my birthday month, and as they go, it’s either 30 degrees and sleeting or 95 degrees and I can’t find my summer clothes for the life of me that day.

This month has also been wildly difficult for too many reasons to post, all of them having to do with the convivial frolic that is divorce.  It will get better.

This brings me to the I Cannot Wait For Spring Or Else post, the one I wanted to post now. That’s when I give up any hope of fireplace-cozy snowstorms and hot cocoa and frosty walks in the snow where I need to stop every 2 minutes to take a photo, igniting the wrath of all with me. It’s all gone, no running to the store for a Duraflame (just in case), no layering. It’s over. Hope is gone. Now is the time for flower catalogs and for smelling some dirt. 

I need to post AGAIN? My second post ever. (I will get the hang of this)

I've heard... the thing about blogging is that one needs to do it more than just once. That being said, I am diligently working on/researching/thinking about a post on booze and Old Timey music. Two of my favorite things, beside cheese and David Bowie. But we'll have plenty of time to discuss those things, as well, because, like I said, one needs to keep blogging to actually HAVE a blog. In the meantime, please enjoy more sparkly pictures, this time of my Christmas tree that takes me 24,000 man-hours to decorate. I don't take it down until close to end of January. What?

HEY, while you're here, why don't you post a comment, a bon mot, or maybe just a grunt of recognition? I would love to hear from all 3 of you out there! If you don't want to comment, no big whoop.

Onward.

Yea, so that happened. I used to co-own a restaurant. Technically, I still do, but I haven't been there in almost a year. It's been quite a year of super fun change. So I thought I'd be late to the party and start a blawg. 

I took all of these loverly photos the last time I decorated the restaurant with my Mommie, who would not let me decorate alone and basically bossed me around the whole time. She is a stern task-master, yet as un-paid help she showed no deference and told me most of my ideas were shit. I love my Mommie... only she can do this. To keep her in line, I made her help me apply copper glitter to teeny-tiny twigs for four hours outside on my patio with Krylon Crystal Clear and a stiff winter wind... because I have a vision:

The Crystal Clear fumes were totally worth it, right? The best part of this centerpiece was when the waitpeoples complained about getting the glitter twigs stuck in their hair whilst working. It's f-ing ART. people. And the glitter looks great in your hair. 

So, I miss my little restaurant. It's been about a whole year since I took these photos, and almost a whole year since I had dinner there. Things have changed, and I'm pretty positive it won't look like this for Christmastime this year. But that's OK. 

ONWARD.