Weather Whining

"Minnesota Snowy Road" jmagnus at creativecommons.com

I’m cold and I'm sick of it. I’m sick of wearing my big Irish sweaters, turtle necks and long pants. I wouldn’t mind if I could just wear jeans and a light weight cardigan but this constant bundling up is wearing me the hell out. I’m tired of looking like Ellen Degeneres’s not so talented little sister. I want to look girly and cute ALL YEAR ROUND not just four months out of the year. If I wanted a wardrobe of Sorels and flannel I would live in Portland. Right? I haven’t bothered to Google our weather stats because I’m afraid to find out it really isn’t any colder this year and all I’m suffering from is a diminished tolerance for winter. The Girl is tired of it too. And she’s from almost Canada where its cold and wet plus she went to college in Chicago. That takes serious weather tolerance. I have friends who live across western Canada and their temperature reports from Edmonton (-15 F) and Regina (-25F with high winds!) leave me quivering and weeping in a corner. On the bright side: it’s almost five pm and there is still light in the west plus it was in the forty’s today which makes it probably the warmest day in about a month. (don’t tell me I’m wrong and actually it was 40 a week ago Thursday because you’ll just harsh my weather whine) I thought I was getting a respite this week in Texas but it’s actually going to be colder there on Friday than it will be here. What. The. Hell? I have to lug my stupid sweaters and a big coat with me to Texas? Fortunately, relief is on the way and in twenty-nine days I’ll be thawing out on a beach. I picture us getting off the airplane and slowly melting --like Frosty the Snowman--until there wasn‘t anything but a pile of wet wool, fleece and polypro. Two years ago, one of the caretakers where we stay was helping us with our luggage and I had my big ass puffy down jacket looped under my duffle bag straps. He pointed at it, looking at me like it was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen. It turns out he didn’t realize it was cold enough where we live to warrant a down jacket because his employers live much further north and don’t bring such things with them. Probably because they are accustomed to the cold.

Whatever. I’m not nor will I ever be.

Drastic times call for drastic measures and God bless the Internets. In fact, I think finding the Akumal beach cam was an act of God because it happened by shear chance. And such serendipity has saved our sanity. Or has it? Because now I’m obsessed. And horrors of horrors, I popped on to the beach and to my dismay, the camera had been moved and was directed not out towards the water but straight down so some delinquent or Frat Rat could write in the sand: “Hi Mom from the Mayan Rivera”. Well isn’t that sweet but I don’t give a flying F through a rolling donut about “Mom” , I need to see some dappled, gentle ebbing water and half dressed people basking in the sun! People who get to take off their Irish and expose their pale sickly white winter skin to the glorious rays of the dangerous and deadly sun. Bastards, moving the camera like that. I goaded The Girl into emailing the Akumal restaurant where the web cam lives to explain the paramount importance of fixing the camera as an effort to maintain our sanity over the next 696 hours before we are basking in the sun and writing messages to people in the sand. They fixed it.

The web cam madness doesn’t stop at Akumal. Nope. I visit Castaway Island (NOT the one at Disney Land) and watch the very lucky (and wealthy--because ho boy it’s spendy to just get there from Auckland!) sun worshippers. After dark at my house, I can visit Phuket and watch a live stream of the Indian Ocean from a beach. I considered emailing that hotel to explain the importance of cleaning the salt tang off the lens so I can have a clearer view of the surf and sand. A mic would be nice, too. But then I could just download ocean sounds to go with my viewing. Beach viewing 24/7 at my house.

The Girl will probably come home from work next week and find me splayed out in a lawn chair in the middle of the living room, Mai-Tai in hand, Paulina Rubio blasting as I watch my tiny screen shot of perfect blue water kissing perfect white sand. But I’ll keep a coat over my bathing suit.

I’m not that crazy because it would cost eleventh thousand dollars to heat our house to a balmy 80 degrees.

See ya’ at the beach!