Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’d like to introduce…SPRING. Yes, after a bit of a tussle, the entity we knew as the winter of 2012-2013 has been vanquished to the history books like the bad guy in a B movie. Oh the joys of spring that alleviate our refreshed minds from the memories of snow drifts, wind chills, arctic cold fronts, drifting, sleet, freezing rain, black ice, white ice, purple ice with pink stars (made up ice), snow boots, wool socks, flurries, winter coats, shovels, shoveling, rock salt, snow tires, sledding, snowmen (and women). Ta-ta you bad boy, and stay gone.
Hey, when did we start naming storms? I missed the memo…is this a Weather Channel idea/conspiracy? Seriously, is the idea to name low pressure systems a good idea? Let’s look at this a moment together shall we?
In the days of old, we named hurricanes. That was it…if you were merely a tropical storm you didn’t merit a name, and you didn’t get one. Period. You want a name buddy, you come up with sustained winds of 90 miles an hour or you go back to your room and quit being a cry baby. And they were hurricanes, so we named them after ‘hers’. It was a simpler time really; a time when a big blow was named after a woman, and if it had a name you knew to batten down the hatches and ride the baby out.
Now at some point in the 1970s, some nerd who was just coming up with the idea for home computers had a notion: let’s name hurricanes for both genders. The idea of calling them Himacanes came and went like the use of the metric system, but alternating hurricanes between male and female caught on quite nicely. Himacane Frederick in the fall of 1979 was the first of the male blows.
Last year we had storm Sandy. Not meaning any disrespect to those affected by this little lady mind you, I point out that Sandy was both a winter storm and a hurricane. Can that be? Can she change in mid-course like Taylor Swift in a show? And, if we’d dubbed her Winter Storm Sandy, and Himacane Claude, would people have become confused and not create the required linkage?
I liked the old days. The Blizzard of 1978 carries such ominous overtones…you just know something bad happened during that time. If we called it Winter Storm Elizabeth it reminds me of my cousin Lizzy, who is such a sweet person.
It should come as no surprise to those who read my articles that I have an idea. My idea is to simply name every breeze that grows on the west coast and makes its way eastward along its nationwide track. Think of the joy you’ll feel as Sweet Breeze Susie makes her way from the Sierra Nevada’s of California, through the dusty plains of Kansas, along the flowing fields of Indiana, and eventually ends up rustling the leaves of a maple tree in Portage County, Ohio. We could all douse our cheeks with one of those little fan jobbers that sprays a mist to keep you cool in the summer, go out into our backyards en masse, and yell the joys of Sweet Breeze Susie as she caresses our mutual souls as one. My idea would include a giant ball suspended on a pole in Ravenna with a countdown clock that begins at sixty seconds…we could make it like New Year’s minus all the glitz. Oh forget that, let’s have the glitz as Sweet Breeze Susie dries our moistened cheeks…and right behind Susie are the triplet breezes Mo, Curly, and Larry. The stiff breeze Shemp will be coming along around four in the afternoon, but he won’t be as breezy as Curly.
Sorry folks, got a little off track.
What’s the wind chill factor when it’s 93 degrees with 98% humidity?
I found out a couple of months ago that my daughter and daughter-in-law are both with child. This will bring the total up to four grandchildren if you’re keeping score at home. Now, I dearly love my grandchildren, and have purchased shares in a major manufacturer of drums, trumpets, kazoos, army rifles with realistic noises, pee and poop Barbies, cymbals, large inflatable dinosaurs, squirt guns that require batteries, spoons with holes in the bottom of them, crayons that magically write on bedroom walls, battery operated puppies that bark every hour on the hour, rubber snakes, woopie cushions, plastic swords, Cabbage Patch Dolls that scream “where’s my mommy” every time its dark, and real kittens.
For the past couple of years we’ve had fairly intelligent conversation around the old homestead. We’ve discussed politics, sports, Winter Storm Williard, rising gas prices, the neighbor’s farm animals, the Kardashians (just kiddin’ folks), Rush Limbaugh, the flu, menstrual cramps (yes, they did), and the menu choices at McDonalds. (I mean seriously folks, why would McDonalds sell salads.) But, the topics have changed since the impending due dates stretch out before us. They’ve gone on a track I’m entirely uncomfortable with, and I’ll share my discomfort with you. But first, in an effort to not embarrass my daughters, I’ll change their names to D1 and D2. I’ll be playing the part of F1.
This, then, is a common conversation around the formerly comfortable household:
D1- “So my baby this week is the size of an apricot pit.”
F1- “What size was the apricot?”
D2- “Mine should be about the size of a lime; I think I felt her kick already.”
F1- “Is my grandbaby green?”
D2- “And now that the morning sickness has passed I’m getting so tender in my (fill in the blank).
D1- “Me too. And my (fill in the blank) as well as my (fill in the blank) is so swollen I nearly cried last night.
D2- “You know, at three months they’ll be the size of an orange. Did you get that coconut cream for the stretch marks yet.”
D1- “Oh yes, got it on the way home from the ultrasound. I sure hope my feet don’t swell like they did last time.”
D2- “Me either. Is my butt getting bigger?”
F1- “I’m gonna go outside and finish that noose I started yesterday.”
D2- “’Cause it can’t start getting this big this early…”
D1- “No, you look fine…think of the baby and you’ll be fine.”
F1- “Can anybody point me to a weight bearing beam…”
M1- “Oh just hush and use the Maple limb outside….:
M1 is played by my wife, and is a recent edition to the uncomfortable conversation at the old homestead.