If You Run Out of Chocolate, There's Always The Bottom Layer of The Inversion

The English language is often a such a barrier to effective communication. When people learned that we were moving to Florida, they said, “Oh--you’ll miss the winter!” Or, “You’ll miss the snow!”

“Miss”? I am convinced that there must be an alternate meaning to this word with which I am unfamiliar, because the most common definition simply makes no sense. What on earth would I miss about bitter, bone-chilling, physical pain; or miserable, oppressive, emotional numbness? That's like saying, "You'll miss your root canal pain when that Vicodin kicks in." Or maybe, "When you're financially solvent again, you'll miss the grinding misery of debt." Does anyone really enjoy the relentless deluge of brain-numbing gray skies and lifeless landscapes? Or losing the feeling in your appendages? On the other hand, No Feeling At All may actually be preferable to the stinging and stabbing pain of cold. Maybe they think that they would miss road salt eating away at the bottom of their car? Or how about missing the fear of traveling on icy roadways? Maybe they mean specifically missing face-planting on icy parking lots or sidewalks and knocking out a few superfluous teeth?  Missing locks freezing on their car doors? Frostbite? Drippy noses? Chapped lips? Or how about sucking in the gritty bottom layer of a good old-fashioned inversion? 

"White Christmas", they cry! People only wish for a white Christmas because anything is better than the dull, dreary gray that saturates their view the rest of the winter. Is it truly worth the inconvenience, aggravation, botheration (I know right?), exasperation, frustration, hassle, headache, annoyance, irritation, nuisance, trial, or vexation of the rest of Winter?

Winter is the season that used to make me wish for spontaneous human combustion--mostly for myself. In the Winter, I would wear my Mickey Mouse ankle socks every day, and my bright yellow sneakers--like sunshiny talismans. Winter often found me standing in front of the linen closet, sniffing the SPF 50 Banana Boat; or sitting by my fake fireplace, guzzling hot chocolate, reciting affirmations, and shorting out my fake sunlight lamp with my tears. And in Utah, Winter lasts for somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 months a year. Some days there is simply not enough chocolate in the world--or Prozac (which doesn’t taste nearly as soothing as chocolate)--and most of these days occur in Winter...and late Autumn...and a good chunk of Spring. When Bill Murray's character Phil, in Groundhog Day, said, "I'll give you a winter prediction: it's gonna be cold; it's gonna be grey; and it's gonna last you the rest of your life,"-- well, frankly that terrified me more than any of Johnny Mathis's scary ghost Christmas stories. 

In the interest of fair and balanced coverage, I will now relate Three Things I Like About Winter:

1. when it’s over.

It is tempting to stop there. Anything else feels artificial and insincere--because it is.

2. It makes great material for Facebook posts.

3. It’s a great excuse to drink hot chocolate and chocolate milk (TIP: I’ve learned it’s best to stop drinking when you run out of liquid because it's challenging to drink powder), or to eat chocolate anything, including chocolate milk powder right out of the canister (meaning it would be best to ignore the previous parenthetical comment). It’s no coincidence that I lost almost 30 lbs after moving to Florida.

I miss Winter like I'd miss lumbago, small pox, or a punch in the nose. Okay, I've never actually had lumbago. Mostly, I’m just relieved that I don’t have to figure out how to spontaneously burst into flame.

Feel free to join in the conversation, but only if you agree with me. Don’t waste your breath on any fruitless or banal arguments: Some of my readers (mostly my husband) will only think less of you. 

Confessions of a Mental Black Hole

The great thing about getting senile is that life is full of surprises! My husband has found that he has a far greater number of amazing ideas now that he’s approaching 50 than he did just 10 years ago. Of course he’s had most of them previously--some more than once. But he seems so proud of himself--such a happy little smile on his face--that it’s hard to burst his bubble. Which is why I do it on my blog for a public audience. 

Assuming one has a sense of humor, the process of becoming feebleminded can be downright hysterical (and you can take that any way you want). We’ve all experienced the adventure of walking into a room, with great purpose in our stride, only to pull up short when we realize we have truly no idea why we looking into an empty dryer, or why we find ourselves staring a bar of soap, or what our garage has to do with making a Caesar salad. One Sunday I strode briskly and deliberately right up to my Golden Retriever...with my nine-year old’s tights. Oh. Wrong child.

Lately I have taken to telling my kids, by way of explanation for my not-quite-constant state of confusion, “It’s not my fault; I’m just getting old.” But my older daughter called me out on this. “Um, you’ve pretty much always been this way.” Where does being scatterbrained end and getting senile begin?  To tell the truth, I can’t remember. At times I feel that my mental vacuum is so intense that I am actually sucking reasonable or sound thinking out of the air for miles around me. 

My mother called me up one morning from her doctor’s office. She explained that she had locked her keys in her car and asked if I could drive her over to her apartment to get her spare set. Stopping in the middle of my morning routine, I jumped into my car and hurried down to pick her up from the doctor’s office and run her home. Upon pulling up to the curb outside her apartment, she thanked me again, and I replied that it was no problem. I courteously watched while she walked up the stairs to her apartment, and once she was safely (???) inside, I immediately drove off, reworking my morning schedule in my little pea brain. Moments later, my cell phone rang. It was my mother--what now? 

“Hey there--what’s up?” 

“Um, where did you go?” she asked.

“I’m on my way home,” I replied, trying to keep the tone of “duh” out of my voice.

“So...I need a ride back to the doctor’s office to get my car,” she politely reminded me.

Needless to say, we had a great laugh about that one! Laughed ourselves silly over it in fact--I laughed as I drove back to her apartment; we both laughed as she got in; we continued laughing as we drove back to the doctor’s office; and laughed further still...right up to the moment when she realized she had not locked her keys in her car at all, but had in fact left them in the doctor’s office.

All the bulbs burnt out in our family a long time ago....

Going senile has its downsides, for sure: Looking foolish; wasting time trying to remember things--or driving around Utah Valley for no reason; draining energy from the refrigerator while you stare vacantly into it, wondering if you even have a reason to have the door open (hint: there’s ALWAYS a reason to have the fridge door open). But as I think about it, there are some upsides, too. I just realized that the great thing about getting senile is that life is full of surprises! I love a happy ending!