That's It I'm Outta Here

Michigan winter can suck my dick. That's right. Suck. My. Dick. I'm so fed up with snow, ice, sub zero temperatures and skin so dry that I'm starting to look like someone carved me out of an apple, that I have resorted to speaking like a 13 year old boy in juvenile detention.

The Hawaiian vacation that MDH and I have been planning for well over a year has finally arrived. We are ditching the road salt and snow shovels for a couple of weeks and trading them in for warm black sand and snorkel gear. Fuck yes.

I'm so excited that I don't even care that I'm still carrying around the 50 lbs I vowed to lose last January when we booked our flights. Fuck it. So yes, in addition to having a shriveled dried apple doll complexion, I'm fat, but I'll be shriveled and fat in Hawaii. Anyway, the humid tropical air will smooth out my craggy skin in no time, and all the hotel sex and fresh fruit I can tolerate (quite a lot) will have me trimmed down before you know it.

I don't even care that it's the "rainy season" and when anyone mentions that it probably won't get any warmer than 75 I laugh right in their face (ha ha!), which frankly hasn't done much to win me any friends, but who cares? Rain? Bah! At least it wont' be snowing every freaking day and when I walk around outside I won't have to worry about whether or not my eyeballs will freeze solid and crack into a million pieces.

To be fair to all the people I know and love that live here in the Tundra, I promise to bring back as much sunshine and warmth as is humanly possible. I also promise that when I come back I won't bitch about winter any more. Until next year.

In my absence please enjoy some of the photos we took on our previous trips to Hawaii.

Winter Blows

This is the current view standing inside my front door. So grim that I didn't even have the balls to step out onto the porch or even open the storm door to take the picture. I should state for the record that the plow guy was just here not more than 20 minutes ago and the driveway has already disappeared again.

Shitfuckdamn. I hate winter.

The only thing worse than this view from inside my front door is standing there looking at it knowing that I have to go out to the supermarket. We are out of everything. Eggs, milk, orange juice, coffee creamer. The only fresh produce I have at the moment is 3 garlic bulbs and 2 Spanish onions so old they are sprouting green roots.

The only thing worse than this view and knowing that I have to go the supermarket in this mother fucking horrible weather is the thought of maneuvering a shopping cart across an icy, slushy parking lot.

You know what? We are too fat and over indulged in this house anyway. I mean these are tough times and so I need to learn to be more resourceful and make due with what I have instead of all this gross consumerism I've been willingly participating in for so long. Who needs coffee creamer when you have tea? Who needs fresh orange juice when you've got an old grape Kool-aid packet left over from 1992? Besides I just brushed my teeth, why would I want to eat onions?

I'm not leaving the house today and nothing can make me.

24 Hour Weenie People

I have lots of things to write about, but most of them are of the long-ish story telling variety and I'm not in the mood to flesh them out today. Besides, it's bill paying day for MDH and he's probably going to boot me out of the office at any moment. He is currently performing his usual Sunday afternoon routine of watching the talking head brigade (Face the Nation, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, etc..) while simultaneously watching UMass basketball on his laptop and shouting to himself, so I have a little time.

Here instead I'll tell you about our evening out. We forgot to take the camera. I don't have any actual photographic proof, but Rachel, Playtah and Aria were there as witnesses that MDH and I actually went out on a Saturday night.

We went to Billy's Lounge, which is a terrific little bar near our house. Technically it's within walking distance, but since we live in the fucking tundra, we drove. Aria's father's band were the featured performers of the night with the lovely Aria filling in for the regular female vocalist. She, along with the rest of the band, kicked ass. They played the kind of crowd pleasing R&B, Funk and Soul standards that make even the fuddiest of fleece wearing duddies get up and dance.

As we were leaving the bar I noticed that it was 12:50am and that I had a terrible hankerin' for a chili dog. MDH was not keen on the idea. I whined and put up a fuss until I realized that I was the driver, so I shut up and just drove straight to the 24 hour weenie restaurant instead of going home. It's weird that such things as 24 hour hot dog joints exist in a dullsville boring town that normally shuts completely down by 11PM, but I'm so very glad that they do. It's almost all we've got.

By the time we got to the weenie store MDH had decided not only that chili dogs were just the ticket, but also declared me "A Genius!" and trudged across the slushy parking lot to buy our late night snack while I waited in the toasty warm car.

We ate the sloppy doggies back at home hovering over paper towels on the sofa in the den and stayed up until almost 3am talking and laughing.

How did I get so lucky?

Michigan Winter - Suburban Survival Tactics

Fall is my favorite season. I love the smell and crunchiness of the fallen leaves so much I don't even mind sweeping them off our deck. I love reintroducing corduroy pants, jackets and boots back into my wardrobe. And I love taking long drives in the country and seeing the leaves changing colors. It's spectacular. I met and fell in love with MDH in the fall so it's also the anniversary of our first date and subsequent wedding.

Since moving to Michigan fall has also become the season that I start worrying about winter. In Columbus winters are fairly mild compared to Grand Rapids. It's typically 10-15 degrees warmer down there and snows about half as much. During winters in Columbus you're more likely to experience nasty gray skies that pummel you with sharp bursts of icy cold rain than the endless mountains of snow we get in GR. Unpleasant as that may seem, in Columbus you also are likely to get week long stretches of sunny 60 degree temperatures in the middle of January or February. It's weird weather, but that balance always worked for me. I didn't like winter, but I didn't hate it either. Maybe I was just used to it.

I've come to hate winter since moving here. This year I want things to be different so I've devised list of tactics I'm going to try to do to make our life here more tolerable. I don't expect to suddenly love winter, but I'm hoping this year I won't want to crawl into a hole and die.

• I will open the drapes every day. In previous years I have kept them closed because the sight of all the muddy snow was depressing and having to see my neighbors and be seen (no foliage between our yards) was uncomfortable. So our house was very gloomy. This year underwear sightings be damned - Lady needs some sunshine.
  
  
• I will buy and decorate a Christmas tree for the holidays. Due to the combination of not being Christians and having busy travel schedules , we've gone the last couple of years without one, but there's something quite cheerful about the smell of pine and the sparkle of the lights. There won't be any presents under it, and it could turn out to be either a big giant cat toy or big giant litter box as Turtle is quite young and has never seen a Christmas tree before. It's worth a shot. (This kitty looks kinda like Turtle.)
  
  
• We will use our fireplaces. We've got two, one upstairs and one in the basement. I'm a little afraid of them because, well, it's lighting a huge fire in the middle of your home. Plus I used to work for a fire restoration company. Fireplaces are dangerous and I'm not sure we are smart enough to operate one, but we've got to try. They are cozy and cheerful and I will need as much of that as I can get. If things go awry maybe a week or so in a hospital burn unit will break up the monotony and at least I will know we made an effort.
  
  
• Diet be damned I'm going to bake cookies and things. I'm thinking it'll keep the house smelling nice and our badly insulated 1948 oven will help keep the house warm too.
  
  
• I will wear appropriate footwear when going outdoors. I've got to just break down and buy some honking big snow boots. In previous years I could be seen tip-toeing daintily down the driveway and across parking lots in soggy suede flats. Idiot.
  
  
• I will wear hats that cover my ears when going outdoors. I look fabulous in hats anyway.
  
  
• I will try not to be too upset or self conscious if I get hat head.

That's all I've got for now. There is one big issue I'm not sure how to tackle - so send me your suggestions if you've got any:

• Cold toilet seats. What can you do? Previously I just hovered but that gets tiresome. Plus unless you are an Olympic gymnast, a Yoga Instructor or some other kind of person with amazing balance how can you read in that position?
  In my own home I dread having to pee and that's just crazy. Once I even went thru a phase where I tried pre-warming the seat with the high/hot setting on my hair dryer but that's a bit noisy for those middle of the night visits and the cord doesn't reach all the way. MDH also pointed out the danger created by the combination of having a plugged in appliance so close to water and my underdeveloped motor skills. I don't want to burn the house down, but I also don't want my heart to stop when I sit down.