All Hail, the Fruits of Winter

I figured I would take at least one more break from the grind of contributing 11 pages to the wasteland of my bloga and offer a timely homage to winter.

Most people don't accomplish much during winter and many people in the colder regions prefer spring and summer to winter. I am no exception. I don't ski, snowboard, ice skate or snowmobile. If I didn't have two kids, I wouldn't go outside, even on temperate days, to play in the snow. I do little more during the winter than a bear that hibernates for four months. But, because it is expected to be under 30 degrees for many of the next 90 days, I thought I would think positively for a change. I'm a glass is full kind of guy . . . if the glass is half full of Captain Morgan and Coke. Here are my reasons to like winter:

1) Spend less money @ Home Depot and Gertens. I can always find many reasons to go to Home Depot. In the spring and summer you need fertilizer for the grass, tar patch for the driveway, paint to touch up the deck, rocks for the rock garden, gardening supplies, building supplies for the shed, tree trimming equipment, weed killer, varmint or pest control, or cement block to frame in a planter so your yard has decent curb appeal. At Gertens, someone can spend a fortune on yews, lilacs, arborvitaes, grasses, hostas, or trees of any kind. Then there is root stimulator, rock garden gnomes, bird baths, more fertilizer, especially if your yard is the weed zoo that mine is. It never ends. I would guess that I spend about a third of the money in October through March that I spend in April through September at Home Depot and Gertens. In the winter, about the only Home Depot products I might buy are a snow shovel or christmas lights and I haven't yet needed to replace the shovel I got eight years ago. I am very into having projects to do I almost bought supplies to build a pergola for the grub worms that were living in our back yard- (see #3).

2) Less time spent on yard work. If it snows, you shovel-that's it. It takes me, on average, an hour and fifteen minutes to mow the lawn, walking behind my self-propelled mower. And about once a month I weed whip. That contraption isn't the easiest thing in the world to start and I get grass clipping all over my legs and shoot the occasional small rock or piece of sand at my legs. If the Home Depot sold shin guards or nut cups I would spend more winter money there. In the winter there is no worrying about whether it is going to rain, so you don't have to spend time moving the sprinklers on the south side of the lawn (we have underground sprinklers that take care of most of the lawn). There are no weeds to contend with that come between our patio blocks and none that are nuisances coming through the rock garden landscape fabric that was supposed to curtail weeds for ten years. Each spring, I put down a ring of Triazicide that keeps the ants from invading my house and some years there are other lawn insects to contend with or a mole that tunnels its way underground. This past year, I put a wire fence underneath my deck to keep a rabbit from living there. The rabbit kept growing and had to chew several (and bigger) holes in my lattice so it could get its fat arse through. There is no end to the number of projects a guy like me can dream up- even accidentally.

3) No ants or mosquitoes. During the warmest time of summer, no matter how much you've spent on caulking, and especially if you have young kids that can unwittingly feed several ant colonies by dropping crumbs on the floor, you have that pest to contend with. So there is Terro to purchase, after the caulk you purchased has failed- see #1 above. You want to spend a nice evening on the patio or deck. Well, you better get out there quick, before the mosquitoes arrive. This past summer was very nice, because it didn't rain a lot, so there were fewer bugs overall. But, see #2- time spent and money spent watering the lawn and dragging the hose around, perhaps even buying a new sprinkler head- (see #1).

4) You are expected to overeat. With Halloween, Thanksgiving, christmas proper and any and all holiday events surrounding christmas, there is a ton of food. I always show up at my sister's for Thanksgiving with my big pants on. We used to eat two Thanksgiving meals on turkey day-going to my sister's and the in-laws. This year, we had three. We celebrated double at the in-laws because of some availability issues. Ham, turkey, dressing, yams, potatoes, gravy, rolls, butter, baked corn, pecan pie. I'm not going to list off the number of good things there are to eat around christmas, when you've still got leftover Halloween candy in a bowl on the top of the fridge that you've confiscated from the kids. I feel like a lord that takes a percentage of chocolate from my little serfs.

5) Basketball and hockey tournaments and the Super Bowl. The biggest event, outside of christmas, is watching the Super Bowl. People nest in their houses, eating pizza, guacamole, chicken wings, and chips and drink beer- (see #4). I love NBA fantasy hoops, even if I've only won one title in 15 years. In March you get the best sports seen in the country- March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament, which my Tar Heels won last year. This tournament is everything its counterpart in NCAA football is not. Where the former decides the games on the court, after all the complaining about who is in and out of the tournament, and where someone is seeded- the latter has a computer and an algorithm decide the champion. That approach makes less sense than why people still think they need to vote for one of two political parties. A team from a smaller conference that goes undefeated has no chance to win a national championship because the good old boys won't let them play for it. So, I like winter in this area, because I get to stop hearing about college football on ESPN. In Minnesota, there is the high school hockey tournament. I've been watching that since I was 7 years old. Even winter can remind one of their youth.

6) Reading and writing and shopping for christmas, sometimes even for you. With all of the things you don't have to do in #2 above, even with two small kids, there is more time to watch TV, read and write.

7) Sweat and shirts. Now granted, you freeze your behind off in the winter and I would far prefer the summer heat to the winter cold, but in the winter you don't pit out any of your shirts and with that you don't smell as much. I think I sweat an average amount for a guy, but I might be more annoyed by it. Well, you don't have to worry about that when you are so cold that your nuts won't descend for days at a time, unless you sit by a fire. Also, I hate ironing; I'm terrible at it. By the time I iron the second half of a long sleeve shirt, the first half I ironed is wrinkled again. In the summer, you don't have to iron long-sleeve shirts, because you aren't wearing them. Hey, I'm trying to think positively.

Slamming winter interlude: Because I couldn't go all the way without complaining about winter or the events that traditionally take place during winter, I wanted to get those Scrooges out there a mental pacifier. Sure it's cold; you can't be outside; cook food on the grill; the roads are covered in ice; we must endure holiday decorations at retailers from mid August until the third week of January, given all the clearance items they have to sell; there are only reruns on television because everyone knows televisions stop working between Thanksgiving and christmas when it is cold and dark outside and there is often (literally) nothing else to do; you have holiday lights to put up; a dog peed in the snow your daughter just ate (see #8); you can't gun the engine fast enough to get the car up the driveway because of all the snow; you have to wear a jacket that weighs as much as a dog from the toy group; you gain eleven pounds in three months, and you contract seasonal affective disorder once the leaves start falling.

All that said and- can someone please, please tell me why they play all of the holiday shows so early in the season? Someone went to the trouble of making a Madagascar christmas special this year and then someone made the brilliant decision to play it the week BEFORE Thanksgiving! Morons! If you are going to play all of the christmas shows so early because we're all so busy freezing our butts off shopping, play the damn things again, when any self-respecting holiday-loving personage is in the mood to watch them. And don't cite viewership numbers and contend no one watches television between the 10th and 20th of December. You can't tell me those christmas shows- Rudolph, The Grinch, Shrek the Halls, Charlie Brown, Frosty, etc. won't get better numbers than Dinner Impossible on the Food Network or the 15th incarnation of CSI on CBS. Watching these shows reminds me of my youth. What doesn't?

Whew. Lucky I'm half done or this grammar check on Microsoft Word would drive me nuts, changing my lowercase "christmas" to the upper case version.

8) Snow. I have two kids, and provided it isn't 10 below, they like to get at that snow. I think we could feed our kids a couple meals a week by telling them to eat the snow. I have some good memories of playing in the snow when I was a kid and everyone does- king of the hill, fumble football, snowball fights, snow forts, flooding the backyard for a rink, boot hockey in the driveway, where slap-shots weren't allowed, even before I was hit with someone else's backswing and needed a patch over my left eye. Now, even though it takes 12 1/2 minutes to get two kids under the age of five ready to go outside, there is fun to be had. You can build your kids forts and drag them around on the sled, while avoiding a heart attack, and laugh when they do a face plant in the snow, after which their lower lip puffs out so far a buzzard could take refuge upon it.

9) Warm showers. They just feel that much better don't they? Never mind that you freeze your butt off until you're dry and in warm clothes- there is just something about a warm shower in the middle of winter. Ok, yeah, I oversold that one and I'm reaching. But if not for the cold, I would never have learned that my son's favorite water temperature is warm. Good to know.

10) Cold Nipples. Sorry for the touchy-feely winter positive next to this R-rated alternative. It is cold in the winter; I know that doesn't come as any surprise to people. So, for all of the skimpy clothing that can be worn during the summer months, about the best that can be said for winter is that you might have a chance of spotting a substantial protuberance. Thankfully for us males, who may have hot women withdrawals in winter when everyone is putting on layers of clothing, many female areolas are too sensitive to be contained. If it weren't for wool and I were ranking this list, I would have to put this one pretty high up. Honey, when I wrote "us" I meant all men but me of course.

11) Parades. This is a double-edged sword and I advise people to heed my advice. Do not begin watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in the first hour. They've sold this as a parade, with Smurfs, Mickey Mouse and Spider Man balloons and Sesame Street and Dora floats, but most of what you get is a round table discussion where the hosts find themselves amusing, discussing with Michael Mckean what fine work he's doing in his off Broadway play about narcissism, and how great he thinks the writing and the cast (which you've never heard of) are doing. Dude, tell me when you are coming out with something like "Spinal Tap" or "Best in Show" or get out of the way- a Handy Manny balloon is coming down 34th Street- and my kids don't even like Handy Manny. I would rather listen to Boris Yeltsin, who is still alive by the way, tell me about his favorite childhood moments growing up in Siberia in Yiddish, a language I'm pretty confident he doesn't speak. Watching parades does bring me back to my youth- (see #5); it would be something I was doing waiting for the football pregame show to come on. Hey, we didn't have cable, and it isn't my fault they fit some of the worst lip-sync artists in the world in between the Old Mother Hubbard float and Darkwing Duck balloon- a fellow who stole his irritable cartoon duck act from either Daffy or Donald- take your pick. Here's another clue- don't put an advertisement for General Motors, even though they need all the help they can get, over the Disney Princesses float I promised my daughter she'd see fifteen minutes ago. Morons! Ok, that turned a little negative. It snowed last night . . . I'm trying.

12) Hot chocolate. Besides beer, Captain-Coke, Mountain Dew, and UV Blue Vodka and lemonade, my favorite drink is that old water and chocolate powder drink heated for two minutes in the microwave. Sometimes I even have a few stale miniature marshmallows to add. I have the circulation, in my hands and feet, of a giant cuttlefish with type II diabetes (ah, that doesn't actually have hands or feet), so being able to warm my hands against a cup of hot chocolate is good stuff. Never mind that I scald my lips and tongue impatiently testing the temperature of my concoction. It turns out, my favorite hot chocolate temperature- is warm (see #9) and if you are a man- read #10 again just for the hell of it.

13) The second refrigerator or freezer. You don't have to refrigerate pop or have ice cubes to cool a room temperature soda. In the winter, if you want a drink, open up the door to the garage . . . it's cold man. Ok, so when it freezes, you must remember to bring in the garage beverages or you will be left with a frozen pop you have to wait 45 minutes to thaw, but other than that, it's all good. If you're having a party, you can store all of the beverages on the deck- and that leaves more room in the fridge for food (see #4). You don't even need to worry about drunken squirrels stealing your stuff. They don't have the arm strength and I hear the punishment for reckless tree climbing in the squirrel community is crippling to their social life. Also, if you go out to eat and have other errands to run, you can leave the leftovers in the car without worrying about them spoiling. Course, a lot of people decide it is too cold outside to leave the house to go out to eat, but to hell with them anyway.

14) christmas music . . . both the good and the bad. Sure, they start playing this stuff way too early and too often, and some of it, especially if your wife has an I-Pod and knows how to use the favorites play list that isn't populated with nearly enough songs, can drive you insane. But the music (at least some of it) reminds me of my youth. Some of it makes me long for the silence of the isolation room in some fictitious prison, but I digress. Every time I hear Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" I think of her showing some cleavage on the CD jacket of her holiday album back before she was completely skanky and before she had decided to only hang out with American-African gentlemen. (Note to the guys- seeing the nipple back then was a little much to hope for- read #10 again if you're depressed or if you aren't.) However, there are a few songs I can't stand and they exist only to make others seem more palatable by comparison. The most offensive of these holiday eardrum-numbing songs is Barbara Streisand's version of "Jingle Bells". This is 2 minutes of pure, perhaps LSD-induced torture. But at least it is only 2 minutes. Then, what little is left of my holiday spirit, after discovering a number of gifts I received that I can't and won't use and didn't ask for did not come with receipts and which I can't return, comes back to me. Seriously, if you have never heard this version of the popular song- do it once and compare the effects to this central nervous system disorder: "A common condition arising from compression of, or damage to, a nerve or nerve root. Usually caused by degeneration of an intervertebral disc, which protrudes laterally to compress a lower lumbar or an upper sacral spinal nerve root. The onset may be sudden, brought on by an awkward lifting or twisting movement". People, you either have Sciatica or have just listened to Streisand's version of Jingle Bells too often during one holiday season. Also, "there may be numbness and weakness in the leg." People might think I'm kidding. Give it a listen if you dare. The horror!

15) Holidays. I already mentioned the overeating and the shopping, both of which are fun and dangerous at the same time. But the holidays are actually much more than that, especially if you have kids. I'm going to ignore the fact that some people who shop for gifts go out and buy people what they want them to have, that think that providing a list of gifts one wants is rude and all that stuff I covered in the the second post I wrote way back in 2006- "Ungratefulness and Steak with Ketchup" but forgetting that for a minute- the holidays are all about family and drinking and little kids and drinking and eating and drinking and opening presents and drinking. And let's be honest, sometimes we should drink before we get to the eating or the little kids or the family events. The holidays- especially christmas, are all about kids. Nothing is more rewarding than the innocence and excitement of seeing a child glow more than any string of lights available at the Home Depot, at least until the latter is 70% off. Now, either the children have actually swallowed a string of lights, (I wouldn't put it past my little guy), or the anticipation of Santa and toys and fun and being able to share days and weeks with them at this time, which is something people should never forget, is too overwhelming to keep it inside. Now, it isn't until they're about 8 or 9 when they wonder why their I-Tunes or Best Buy gift card is only for $20 that we realize the loss of child-like innocence- which reminds us of our age and we again lose our childhood again. Until then though appreciate the fruits of winter, drink it up, and this time I'm not just talking about the alcohol.