Brrrrrrrr.......

Our Yankee friends and relatives make fun of us Southerners, when a winter storm sets in. We scramble to the store when the weather man reports there will be dipping temperatures, particularly when there's also any kind of precipitation. The obligatory bread, milk and eggs leave the shelves within hours. Anyone who is a Mama of children understands this. With those three items, you can always make something that will keep your peoples' stomachs full for a couple of days. We all have peanut butter, syrup and butter stored somewhere. Even if the electricity goes off,  you can muster up a sandwich of sorts. Not that any of us would die, even if we had to fast for a week or two. I dare say, with my metabolism, given the combination of my fat stores and my pantry, I might last until Summer Solstice. When things warm up permanently in the spring, I could plant a garden (newly-nimble with this enforced fitness plan) and we'd have crops before we turned into skeletons. If society made it through, I could write a book and retire on the proceeds. That escalated quickly...

All the neighbors have scattered to the four winds. On one side, my Alaskan friend headed back to her frozen tundra. On the other, the Californians knew to scuttle back to where it never rains (or freezes). This week, our cross-the-street neighbor decided to vacate back to her hometown of Carrollton and sell her sweet little cottage. Need a house? I'm a realtor and we need a new neighbor. We're starting to get paranoid. 

Carrollton Wind Ensemble rehearsals start back tonight, after a long winter's nap. I'm not looking forward to skidding over to the Arts Center in 20-degree weather. I truly have nothing to complain about...I think about my college friend (Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee), Grace, who hailed from Miami with nothing but a sweater. She is a 6' goddess and married a 6'5 Viking preacher from Minot, North Dakota. Their first winter together, she called me from under the permafrost. Back then, we didn't have the internet and barely watched the news. She shocked me with the report of their 52-degrees-below-0 temperature reading that day. Said that the snot was freezing in her nose. It has been 40+ years, three girls later, and she's still with the dude and all that weather. Love is certainly blind.

I guess I'll quit complaining about our 20 degree weather and go find my ole Papa Bear and hibernate with him for a few hours...