Cabin Fever

I am not even sure when I will be able to post this blog—that’s how bad the weather has been.

People are fond of saying that the summers are warmer, and that the years are heating up until the point that the polar ice caps will melt and we will all need snorkels.  I can’t find any evidence of such an occurrence. This is undoubtedly the worst winter I can remember in the past twenty years.  In the winters of 1993 and 1994 I can remember missing plenty of school due to the snow.  Even the interstates were shut down due to the inclement weather and poor conditions.  While we have yet to experience (thankfully) the two-foot blizzards of snow of my childhood, this winter has been interminable.  It got an early start, snowing before Thanksgiving and seldom letting up since.  Christmas was thankfully free of anything heavier than a dusting.  Then the Arctic air swept down from above and put us in an icebox.  For most of January it has been the same pattern: cold, snow, brutal cold, snow, more brutal cold, more snow.  I have never been so eager for warm weather in my entire life.  It is difficult in these conditions to find the motivation to do anything.  Lately I have been trying to keep busy but there are only so many episodes of Dallas you can watch and only so many pages of a book to read before your eyes get tired.  Whatever else has come to pass due to the cold weather, one truth remains:  I picked the absolute right time to grow a beard.