Monday, November 8, 2010

Beginning to Look A Lot Like...

I had something else planned for today's post (and, for your information, no it wasn't something rant-y and comic book-y, as you might have guessed), but then, as I made my way in to work this morning, it started to snow.

Real, actual snow.

At first, it was nice. A few flakes against a slate gray sky. A little wind kicked up a swirl of brown leaves, and it looked a lot like the perfect November day. But then those harmless, innocent, and, dare I say, whimsical snow flakes turned into hail on the highway, and by the time I was three-quarters of the way to work, there was sleet and slush and not very much fun at all.

The reason I bring this up is because, the week before Halloween, it was nearly 80 degrees in my area.

Sure, the temperature dropped on Halloween weekend and it finally felt like fall. For a day or two. But for the most part, I feel gypped. We had a cold spell in September, and several days with high winds, and a lot of leaves decided to give it up early and not even bother changing color before falling.

The hangers-on, for the most part, didn't change until very late in the season, and even this morning, there were a lot of dead and brown on the trees.

As people staggered in this morning--many late because of the slow going on local roads up by my office--they all muttered a variation of the same thing: "Winter. Already."

I can look past the shopping malls and their Christmas displays in October. And I'm okay with the fact that Starbucks has handed out its red, snowflake-covered holiday cups to customers for the past three weeks. I get it. Capitalism at work.

Still, I like the holidays. I love December. And I like the capitalist aspects of the holiday season. I don't like malls in general, but if I have to be there, a Frank Sinatra record might as well be playing on the speakers. You know what I mean?

But snow? Already?

Really?

That's where I draw the line.

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