Wintry Mix

I refuse to comment on the election results. Check out CrewsClues; he put it much more eloquently than I ever could. At this point, part of me is just relieved that I will never have to hear the words "pregnant chad" ever again.

I have spent the last two hours watching the Doppler radar readout, watching the first official winter storm of the season move in. As I type this, it looks like a big blue spin art project, with Cincinnati as the center.

In other words, the weather sucks. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain. A commuter's nightmare.

I'm not big on cold or winter. Well, snow is fine as long as I have nowhere to go. If it's a weekend and I have nowhere to go, I love looking out the window while a small drift forms on my balcony. I love it when the branches on the trees are encased in ice and the whole world looks like it's coated in confectioner's sugar. I have no problems with that...as long as it's melted by the time I have to go to work on Monday.

I guess the big reason for this is because it's such a pain to get in and out of my apartment complex during inclement weather. My street dead ends into my apartment parking lot, at the bottom of a rather steep hill with a 90-degree turn thrown in for good measure. Miss that turn and you go careening down into a steeply graded copse of trees, with little hope of correcting your mistake on the way down. In the five years I've lived here, I've yet to make the fatal mistake, but there have been times when I've not been able to get up the hill in the morning. There have been times when the streets are so iced over that I went down that hill five inches at a time. (Yes, I drive like an old lady in the snow. Deal with it.) There was one year it snowed so much I wasn't quite sure which snow-covered lump in the parking lot belonged to me.

People in Cincinnati don't deal with wintry weather very well. If the weatherman predicts flurries, people are buying groceries and supplies to last them a month, preparing for the Great White Death.

Other than that, snow isn't such a bad thing. Somewhere over the course of the winter I will nail someone I know with a snowball, and run like hell. I love the crunchy sound my boots make as I tromp through a deep snowbank. I smile to myself when ever I drive past a snowman standing proudly in someone's front yard. (The fraternity houses near my apartment always take advantage of the snow to create a Frosty, usually holding an empty Budweiser. Goofy and immature, yes. I still laugh every year.) Last year, after a blizzard ruined a decent Saturday night's business at the bar, my boss and I went to breakfast at First Watch and came back to do donuts in the empty parking lot. You haven't lived til you've seen an incredibly tense 37 year old man skid his CRX around a deserted parking lot in the middle of the 'hood, grinning like an idiot the entire time.

Maybe I'd enjoy winter more if I knew how to ski. It's always been on my list of things to do before I die, but the closest I ever came was about ten years ago, when the guy I was dating suggested we give it a shot. The friend that offered to give us pointers broke his leg, and we decided it was a sign from God. (I did go sled-riding with him though. I wiped out halfway down the hill, and another group of friends barrelled over the top of me. I threw my back out, and spent the rest of the day sitting at the bottom of the hill demanding Advil and hot chocolate.) Despite this setback, I still would like to attempt to ski...as long as I have health insurance.

One thing that has been crossed off my list of things to do before I die, however, is rockclimbing. Roger Mexico and I went to see Vertical Limit, and I think it suffices to say that I won't be conquering the K2 any time soon. The movie itself is not as bad as I had expected, but was certainly not one I would have picked if given free rein at the theater. ("Oh no! Am I making you see a movie you're going to hate?" Roger Mexico asked as we drove to the show.) The scenery is breathtaking, and there's a lot of near death breath-holding action. Some of the effects are a little icky, for you squeamish kids out there. Let's just say that frostbite is a nasty thing, and pulmonary edema is not a pretty way to die.

Got excited during the coming attractions for about 5 seconds because I thought we were getting a trailer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Then I realized it was Miss Poutylips (Angelina Jolie) and we were getting a preview of Tomb Raider instead. Bummer. I was personally freaked out because the trailer ws obviously done by the same company that put together the one for Gone in 60 Seconds. Same fast cuts, same sultry female voiceovers. What the hell?

We did get to see the trailer for Finding Forrester, which looks promising. Three words. Sir Sean Connery. In a Gus Van Sant movie! (Welcome back, Gus! We forgive you for the Psycho debacle.)

As we were leaving the theater, "Same Auld Lang Syne" (you know, that sappy 70's holiday song by Dan Fogelberg, King of the Wussies) was being piped in on the Muzak, and a thought occurred to me....

WHY IS THE SUPERMARKET A POPULAR PLACE TO RUN INTO EXES IN HOLIDAY SONGS?

I mean, Dan and his ex run into each other in the frozen foods aisle and spend the rest of the song catching up and getting tanked in her car because all the bars are closed. And in "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses (one of my personal favorite holiday songs), our heroine tells the tale of how she met this fabulous guy at the beginning of the year and spent the following months trying to get together with him to no avail, only to run into him at the supermarket on Christmas Eve. (They had both decided to spend Christmas by themselves, and both neglected to pick up cranberries to go with their respective turkey dinners. Awww. How romantic.)

I can relate to the telephone tag and broken dates part of the song, but I can't say that I've ever run into an ex in a supermarket, and definitely not on a major holiday. Maybe it's because I don't like cranberries. Therein lies the sole reason for my singlehood.

OK, I'm outta here. Hopefully the snowplows and salt trucks have visited my neighborhood, and I'll make it home alive. Go outside and play in the snow, all of you.