The Funniest Time Of Year

Winter is funny. At least this one is so far. According to the calendar, we have four more days before winter solstice which makes me shake my head inconspicuously when people mistake it for the beginning of winter. It's not the beginning of winter, it's the moment when the sun is at it's greatest distance from the celestial equator shining directly over the tropic of Capricorn. Winter begins when it's fucking cold.

You know what happens when it's fucking cold? People wear scarves around their faces when they're, oh say, walking to and from work. Do you know what happens when cat hair gets on the scarf? There's a tendency to sneeze. Here's the scene: I am walking in the cold with four pairs of pants on, four shirts, one big jacket, two scarves, ear muffs and a hat. I'm unable to move much at all quite like the little brother in A Christmas Story. Suddenly, I get the sensation that I'm about to sneeze. I start to panic knowing that I will never get my arms up to my face in time to move the scarves out of the way of the flying snot. I stop walking and stand still raising my arms up as high as they'll go still trying to make an attempt to get to my face all the while saying "No! God No!!" Somehow that worked and I didn't sneeze; catastrophe averted.

Winter makes some people cranky although I don't know why people in warm climates would be cranky like the guy who threw his shoes at our valiant leader. By now, I'm sure you've all seen the footage. What I love most about that is after the first shoe, George popped his head right back up and I swear there's a smirk on his face. He looks like the bully on the playground taunting the nerd who's finally had it and is trying to fight back "Come on ya pansy, throw the other one!" So the guy does (ha!) and again Georgy ducks at the last second and finishes his macho stance by pushing away the security guy and refusing help. He can take this nut case on his own. Hilarious. I heard some newscaster say that in Iraqi culture, throwing your shoe at someone is a sign of disrespect. Really??!! I'll have to remember that.

It's Dec. 16th which means that Minneapolis park ice rinks should have opened yesterday. It's cold enough so the rink by my house has no excuse not to be open like they weren't last year when I had poor Penn and his family drive half way across the world to come over and go skating and there was no skating. If they're not open, I'm going to throw my skates at them. You saw that coming didn't you?