Weather Report

'TODAYS SNOW AND FLURRIES IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND IS JUST A TEASE FOR WHATS COMING TONIGHT.'
Since when did the national weather service become so provocative?

'THE JACKPOT...10 TO 15 INCHES... WILL PILE UP IN THE HEAVILY POPULATED AREAS…'
Who’s writing this stuff, some silly blogger? If I hit the jackpot motherlode of snow, what do I win? A snow blower? Vacation to Aruba? Spring tinted glasses? Or do I get to shovel to my heart’s content, or until my heart quits, whichever comes first?

'SNOW... WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES BETWEEN 10 PM TONIGHT AND 10 AM MONDAY CAUSING NUMEROUS DELAYS OR CANCELLATIONS IN ALL SORTS OF TRANSPORTATION DEPENDENT BUSINESS. THUNDER MAY ALSO BE HEARD.'
Woohoo, thunder, just like summer, except no mosquitoes. Instead, it’s freezing white as the car skids into a mammoth snowdrift while the world comes to a rumbling end. Can’t I opt for the skeeters with my thunder, please?

'AN INTENSE HEAVY 12 TO 18 HOUR SNOW STORM IS ON THE WAY FOR MOST OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND…WHEN A NOREASTER DEPOSITS A 5 TO 15 INCH SNOWFALL ACROSS MUCH OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND... EXCLUDING THE COASTAL SOUTHEAST.'
Please please please let that be true, 'cause I am on the southeast coast and I truly don’t care to win this particular jackpot.

Spring is coming spring is coming spring is coming…Isn’t it? Will anyone be able to see it if it’s buried under white crap?

Spring is coming!

OK, so we might have a winter event tomorrow night. At least, theoretically, it shouldn't lay on the ground forever, mutating into a deadly slick substance that even the dog can’t walk on.

Spring means life in the boatyard once again, with boats emerging from their plastic cocoons on land and heading for the water. Spring means I’ll have to get off my lazy duff and gear up for another season of boat canvas work.

Spring most likely means another season of the Shipyard Sh*tfight. In the boatyard where I lurk, there’s a particular bathroom that has been the domain of everyone in the working end of the yard (vs the marina slips end) for as long as both boatyard and bathroom have been in existence, sometime not long after the big bang. Last spring, one of the dinosaur business owners arbitrarily decided that the bathroom was his and no one else’s, based solely on its proximity to his shop. There were two sets of doors to enter before reaching the bathroom door, and he put three different locks on each door. A protracted fight ensued, but in the end, no one could, or wanted to, match his bitterness. We all just wanted peace, like there had been for all eternity prior to the boatyard bathroom battles. A few precious keys were doled out to the tenants deemed worthy of entering the castle. All other unworthy subjects had to truck quite a long distance to the bathrooms at the other end of the shipyard. The privileged, who had to deal with three keys and three locks, didn't feel so lucky every time they struggled to get in while doing a funny little dance of desperation.

After this cranky person left for the winter, there was a big celebration held, with the ceremonial ripping off of the locks. And guess what? Despite the doors being left wide open the entire winter, the bathroom is not trashed, and his shop was not broken into, as Mr. Dementia claimed would happen, here in this place where there’s never, ever been any crime. We’re saving our vandalism for this year’s battle, where we all crap on the carpet outside his shop in protest. No decisions yet whether it will be a group dump or if we’ll take turns.

Yeah, spring, bring it on. I’m more than ready.

Why Not

Okay, okay, for those of you giving me flack about my anti-marriage stance, and to all the happy married couples I know, let’s see, that makes….one, I apologize. Ya know, instead of calling or emailing me, not that I don’t love to hear from you, my dear three readers, (thanks to mom especially), but if you want to argue, or even agree, you could do me a favor and post in my comments, lifting me higher than #1591 http://humor-blogs.com/.

Just ‘cause couplehood ain’t for me doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. Well okay, there’s a lot wrong with me, but my preference to live alone is simply that- my choice. Seriously, I have a deep amount of respect for two people who can happily cohabitate. And just because I don’t want to do it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the idea. Let’s face it, we’re not all the same. Some people would never want to jump out of an airplane, even wearing a parachute, or climb Mt. Everest, or sail across an ocean on a small sailboat. And yes, life is sometimes easier with two people, especially when it’s time to reef the sails after the wind and waves have risen alarmingly. And have you ever tried through-bolting a toe rail back on a boat alone?
Friends are a good thing to have, and I’m blessed to have them in abundance. This one in particular:

I’m sticking to my opinion that having a dog is better in every way than having a man underfoot. Ever tried to get a man to do anything? The dog almost always listens and does what I ask.

So pardon me, but the sun is rising, the temp is way above freezing, the snow has melted, I’m feeling better, and am taking my best friend for a walk in the woods before work. Try to get a guy to do that, or anything at all, first thing in the morning!

Marriage

It is sooo good to be home in my clean, cozy cottage, cuddled next to the woodstove. I’m writing off this year’s vacation as a total woftam. (that’s an aussie term-waste of f**king time and money)

I’ve returned to discover that several people I know have gotten married. Some of them have tried it four or five times before, so they really ought to know better. First timers I can understand, especially those who are feeling that biological clock ticking. Gotta do it now, while I still can pump out some kids to pay child support to/be a single parent to later on in life.

Good luck to you all. Some things, like heroin, crack cocaine, and dinitrogen tetroxide, are best not messed with.

Just like I first wandered off alone in the woods at age four, freaking out my parents, ("why are you both so upset? I wasn’t lost. I knew the way, and just felt like going for a walk by myself."), I have found the reason why I can’t make a relationship work: At the end of the day, I prefer to go home to my own space that’s not cluttered up with any other bodies. This, more than anything else, is at the heart of the reason for all my relationships failing. ‘Cause at some point, as togetherness day in and day out becomes more important to the other person, I start to lose it. GO HOME, I think after a week or so. And when the realization hits that ohmygod he IS home, I start to go downhill. Go ahead, analyze me, tell me it’s a fear of intimacy, that I haven’t met mr. right, that couples are healthier than individuals, blah blah blah. Well, I met an absolutely wonderful guy a couple years back, and he didn’t go home either, so I had to leave him. As for intimacy, I love my friends and share everything with them, my brightest hopes ("I am going to win that lottery without buying a ticket!") my darkest secrets ("You wanna see my pre-cancerous growth?"), and everything I think and feel, ("Yes that shade of pink sucks on you.") as they do with me ("Kit, you need to get out more"). But at the end of the day, after sharing with friends, I just wanna go home, alone. I want sleep in the middle of my bed with no one to bother me. And first thing in the morning, while I’m struggling with the difficult task of getting my eyelids to stay propped open, the last thing I want to see or hear or deal with is someone in my face messing up my waking up process.

I love you. Now go away.

Vacation Sucks

As I lay here in this moldy old trawler hocking up chunks of green mucous, I think, it’s time to go home. Back to my nice cozy cottage with the woodstove, with my nice comfy bed, to the snow and ice. Back to work so I can afford to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. Even the dog is coughing.

If I coulda afforded a real vacation, I woulda. But spiky old FL was the best I could manage, and even that was out of my budget. But I was desperate; mixing my tropical mind set with snow three times a week was messing up my equilibrium. An escape from the frigid weather in the north seemed like a great cure.

Reality bites. The first week here broke records for cold. The second week has been spent being miserably sick. I did get a new alternator when I broke down on the side of the road, something one always dreams of doing 2000 miles from home on vacation. At least during my absence, all my friends up north got a break from winter’s harsh grasp. Almost as soon as I left, temps in New England rose well above normal, bordering on spring-like, and it never snowed a flake the entire time I was away. True to form, the day I get back, it’s supposed to snow. There you have it. I really do cart along my very own black cloud. Any cloud exorcists out there?

Even teaching the dog to like the water was a bust. She refused to swim, stopping short as soon as her feet touched the water. She stood and watched while five other dogs and one guy charged into the water. Turns out she was smart, because all of them came racing right back out, the man yipping the loudest. That water was COLD!

Still, I’m glad I came, because it’s important to change one’s routine and location upon occasion, to get a fresh perspective, especially when the brain has become all muddled up into an icy sludge. For me, this winter break has reinforced the notion that there really is no place like home, home in New England, despite that white crap that falls out of the sky and the inability to wear sandals and bikinis outside in January. Well, I could, but I like my extremities not amputated for frostbite.

Warning, friends, I’m on my way back north, dragging that winter cloud with me.