Fair Weather Snow Day

I hate doing this because I'm shanty Irish. If I talk about something, I jinx it. I know that and though my rational brain screams that there's no scientific proof of cause and effect, my animal brain believes it to be the truth and that perception trumps any reality you can summon.

I'll tell you what-at this stage in the game, we're on borrowed time. I'm back at work after an extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend where I took Friday off and wound up with four free days. The Winterfest parade where I live in Southeastern Connecticut on Saturday saw temperatures in the middle Sixties (!) under a cloudless blue sky. Not bad for the last weekend in November, my little chickadee.

I know this weather cannot and will not last and has, point in fact, started to cool down and cloud up to become exactly what it's supposed to be: the last month of the calendar year. It doesn't keep me from enjoying what is, for New England, balmy conditions. But the third grader in me still remembers how happy he always was about snow days regardless of the consequences.

Yes, I knew, in theory (at least) we made up all the missed school at the 'other' end of the calender, but the joy of unlimited hours of sledding on packed snow that seemed to fall silently and endlessly when we were kids was never dampened by "extra" school days in the late spring. Perhaps it was 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' or 'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for some sunshine today' but when you tell me the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, guess for whom I always root, without exception (I hate revionist history, btw).

This weather is causing me to rethink my 'we're going to pay for this later' mindset as I smile a lot in sheer enjoyment. Winter will get here soon enough, it doesn't need me to worry about it. And like way too many other things I've squandered my worry beads on, my concern will cause zero course deviation and alter the duration and intensity not a jot.

Will I feel this relaxed, this leben-und-leben-lassen frame of mind when we get to February and I have icicles hanging from my nose? We both know the answer to that one but if you'd like, ask me when we get to February. "For every life, forego the parable. Seek the light, my knees are cold." Can't blame the weather this time.
-bill kenny