The Silver Screen Oasis

I'm wondering if this below freezing weather we're having for the last 3 or 4 weeks is affecting people like the summer heat and humidity does.

Last week we had the shooting at the suburbian mall, and yesterday the kid who shot up Northwestern U. I love my solitude but I notice in talking to friends on the phone who are stuck in due to ice and cold, tempers are short and raised voices seem to prevail.

Anne

I think there is something to that. I know people are less content in the winter when there is reduced sunlight.

I'm sitting in my office with my coat on because I can't get warm. It's 50 outside. My brother lives in the Chicago area and I don't know how you handle it. Trying to imagine how our departed friend Larry up in Alberta, Canada handles winter is beyond me. I know it's cold in Winnepeg for Carol (and someone else) but more north is really hard to imagine.

I've been thinking about this very thing, too. I've often said that sometimes I feel that "time is out of joint," to quote that Shakespeare guy. Lately, the weather does not match the seasons in our part of the hemisphere. Earlier this month it was my birthday, and after decades of experiencing cold and wet, and enduring dreary grey snowstorms as a present, this past one was mild and Springlike, with birds singing and the sun shining brightly. The weather is anomalous, inconsistent, and it just doesn't feel right. Many people are extremely sensitive to these phenomena without realizing it. It may not necessarily have to be too cold, or too hot, but just "wrong." One more problem caused by global warming.

And I don't discount the general malaise that the current Administration has foisted upon us. Our growing econonic troubles have hit some people very hard already. Desperate people do desperate things, lest we forget the crime waves of the 1920s and 30s. Even if the perpetrators of these current awful deeds were not themselves responsible for their families' support, the nationally pervasive discontent and worry is just the thing those on the edge of madness need to push them over to the wrong side.

The Northern Illinois shooter was off his medication. As simple and tragic as that.

Well, actually my favorite time is spring and fall and I'd be happy if it never got above 80 or below 50, but living in upstate New York we certainly get our share of winter. I know what you're saying about people being out of sorts in the really cold weather and I really do believe that it has to do with lack of sunshine.

I think what bothers me most about winter is not the cold as much as all that goes with it. You know, scraping off the car in the morning or spending an hour with the snowblower clearing the driveway and sidewalk then having the plow come by and clog it up again before you have time to drive off. I swear the guy who does our street must sit at the end just waitng for me to finish.

The seasons aren't like they were years ago (as Judith states) No More April Showers bring May flowers (now it more like May showers, and June Flowers) As a kid, I hung out outdoors most of the time and the cold never bothered me. Now the older I get the colder it seems to me, sometimes I take a hot shower just to warm up. We get great weather, lately in January and possibility snow in April. We wear Jackets in December and Heavy coats in Spring.

We've had February flowers, almost. We are getting some growing out of the ground. It was nearly 70 last week and now we're getting a bit of snow.

We have the seasons in the same month sometimes. It can keep everyone sick.

I'm also seeing lots of bulb shoots coming up all over NYC. Many trees have tiny buds as well. Every time it warms up the birds get very vocal and excited, only to retreat when it gets cold again. On Sunday I saw some of our urban parrots working on repairs to one of their many huge twig nests in my neighborhood, which they seemed to have abandoned last summer. I suppose they also think it's already Spring.

What with the extra-early turning forward of the clocks next month, we are all going to be a bit out of synch, at least for a while.

Normally, I love the Winter, but since this morning I skidded through a stop sign, spun around the other way and narrowly missed mowing down a granny walking her dust bunny on a leash, I think that I'd trade this weather for a bit of Springtime or Fall right now. You can keep Summer.

No flower buds poking through the snow hereabouts either. It's just cold and gray and snowy this month. Maybe next month we'll see something of Spring and kite-flying and geese soaring home from the South again. *sigh*

And so Winter came roaring back, but not too loudly, to NYC this morning, and southern Brooklyn is now under about 6 inches of powdery snow. Manhattan is wet, but not very snowy. This wasn't exactly a blizzard -- very little wind.

It's still coming down, lightly, and it's not all that cold, so I expect there will be a big, slushy mess by going home time.

It was eerie - when I crossed the bridge into Manhattan this morning, Manhattan itself was invisible because of the snow clouds and the fog. It looked like the bridges were emptying out into nowhere.

Here around Chicago, I've learned not to put any of my winter stuff away until well into June. We've had 3 foot blizzards in April, and 4 inches of rain in May the last few years so, I keep the heavy gear in the car, no longer the garage. Shovels, a small bag of salt, window squeegy, and I hi-jacked my grand daughters 'little mother' broom for light, wispy snow falls which all stay in my trunk all year long. I'm afraid some day I'll need the snow shovel in August.

Anne

This has been an unusually long and snowy winter for the Kansas City area. We have 3-6 inches of snow, then it warms up and melts everything away...just in time for the next snow.

I keep thinking of the following number from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers....


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