Our spring break destination this year is pretty sweet. It’s got a nice patio, a fire pit and supply of firewood, a cool sculpture, and a brightly colored umbrella to shade us from any sun that might appear. According to the proprietor, you’re permitted to take a beer or glass of wine out there, too.
Spring break 2020 is going to be the best spring break yet!
Spring is taking its time this year, arriving at an amble and not at a sprint. Although there is still a decided chill to the air, you can see certain signs of spring if you look carefully. Green shoots and soon to burst petals can be found in many of the sidewalk flower beds.
But our welcome floral friends aren’t the only indicators that spring is upon us. Spring is traditionally a time for cleaning, so discard traffic is also an indicator — like this impressively dead Christmas tree a neighbor put out yesterday. It’s the brownest, deadest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen, and looks like it would burst into flame at the slightest suggestion of heat.
If Christmas is finally over, and spring cleaning impulses are at work, can spring — warm, bright, glorious spring — be far behind?
My grandmother used to say that the month of March would come “in like a lamb and out like a lion” or, alternatively, come “in like a lion and out like a lamb.”
The idea was that you could predict the end of March — unpredictable, blustery, weird, perverse March — by looking at the weather at the beginning of the month. If it was cold and dismal when the calendar page turned to March, you could count on a nice end to the month; but if it was warm and pleasant on March 1, March was certain to jump up and bite you in the behind with some crappy, cold, snowy, “oh-no-will-spring-never-get here?” weather come March 31.
This March 1 morning it was a very brisk 22 degrees, with a stiff breeze driving down the wind chill even lower, when I took Betty for a walk. I’d say by any measure that means that March has come in like a roaring lion, and we can look forward to some warm, meek, lamb-like spring weather in a few weeks.
The lamb/lion issue raises the issue of your choice. After the traditionally dismal, gray month of February, would you rather get a respite from the gloomy chill with a brief period of warm weather come March 1, knowing that you will inevitably be hammered with some more cold weather in the near future, or would you rather batten down the hatches, deal with the ongoing cold on March 1, and feel warmed by the prospect that spring will be here to stay in short order?
Me, I’m a lion/lamb kind of person, rather than a lamb/lion type. Of course, that’s assuming that my grandmother was right in her saying. I feel confident that that is so, because grandmothers are never wrong.
In Subterranean Homesick Blues, Bob Dylan wrote: “You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows.”
If The Voice of His Generation were writing that song in today’s smartphone era, he would have said you don’t need a weather app, either. You can always stick your hand out the window to see if its raining, or open the door and receive an arctic blast to assess just how freaking cold it is. And if you live in Columbus, Ohio in the winter months, you don’t really need to check the weather at all — you can just presume that it’s in the 30s, totally overcast, and drizzling a “wintry mix,” and you’ll be right more than 90 percent of the time.
I’m convinced that the real use of weather apps isn’t checking the weather or getting the forecast for your present location. If that were the case, the apps would just trigger a GPS function, determine where you are, and then tell you the weather . . . but that’s not how they work. Instead, you can input lots of different locations. And therein lies the true purpose of weather apps. They’re not an electronic Wally Kinnan the Weather Man, they’re designed to allow you to provoke your sense of weather envy and then adjust your reaction to the weather in your area by comparing it to other locations.
Check your phone’s weather app, and see how many locations are currently shown on it. My app has about eight, so if I go to the app home page I immediately get a smorgasbord of different weather realities. I can see that it’s a lot warmer in Florida, Texas and Arizona, and if I really want to torture myself I can click on one of the locations and get appalling details about just how bright and sunny and warm it is in comparison to damp, cold, gray Columbus. And then I’ll inevitably go in the opposite direction and see just how cold it is up in Stonington, with maybe a brisk wind blowing in off the bay and some leaden, snow-laden fog to chill the bones even more, which helps to get me back to a state of reluctant Columbus weather acceptance. And once I’ve achieved an acceptable weather equilibrium, I’m ready to bundle up and face the music.
It works in the opposite direction in the summer, of course. If it’s hot and sticky and miserable here, it’s always going to be hotter and even more miserable in Florida or Texas — while in Stonington the weather is a delightful 76 degrees with lots of sunshine.
The real purpose of weather apps is to tell you that the weather is always better somewhere else.
St. Mary Catholic Church in German Village installed a new “Peace Garden” area along Third Street when it underwent renovation work recently. Among the items in the Peace Garden is a statue of a seated lady waiting patiently on a bench. According to the plaque at her feet, it’s a representation of Mrs. Plank, who I suspect was a faithful member of the congregation.
I pass St. Mary every morning on my walk, and I really like the Peace Garden and the statue — except on winter days when it snows. Because when it snows, as it has for the past few days, the placid Mrs. Plank becomes utterly snow-covered, and seeing her in that condition always makes the snowy day feel a few degrees colder. Brrrr! I want to help Mrs. Plank up so she could shed that blanket of snow, brush off her snowbound pillbox hat, and go someplace warm. Heck, I’d even spring for a cup of coffee at the Starbuck’s next door.
There’s a reason the nuns in The Sound Of Music sang that Maria was “unpredictable as weather.” The only thing predictable about Midwestern winters is that they are gray, wet, and cold — but the precise combination of those qualities varies.
Every once in a while, however, the fates align and a flukey day happens — like today. Sunny, and a high of 55? It’s a day to sit outside and bank some of that warmth and sunshine before tomorrow’s gray chill closes in.
Today will be a quintessential indoor day. It’s 33 degrees outside, freezing rain has coated the steps and trees and bushes in the backyard, like the one shown above, in a coat of wet, dripping ice, and a hard rain is still pelting down under flat gray skies — and is supposed to continue all day. It’s the kind of day when walking on frozen brick is especially treacherous, when an umbrella will quickly become heavy with ice, and you’re likely to find yourself taking an unwelcome pratfall that leaves you bruised and soaked.
So why risk the elements? Why not accept nature’s wintry verdict, do a few chores inside, and find a good book to read or a TV show to binge watch? Sometimes surviving the bleakness of winter requires acceptance — and savvy avoidance.
