Thinking on these things . . .

It's been a long, long winter. Everyone, I mean every one I've talked to in recent weeks has commented on how long and bleak this season has been. I read somewhere that we had 10 hours of sunshine in the entire month of February - only 10 hours! No wonder everyone is feeling that winter will never be over! In talking about Easter decorations today my friend said she can't bring herself to put out the bunnies yet while there is still snow on the ground, they may freeze their little cotton tails off! We change time this weekend: "Spring Ahead". Ugh! I've appreciate lately that the sun has gotten up before I have - I'm not looking forward to prying myself out of bed in the dark; it's hard enough to get up some mornings. Will Winter ever end? Will Spring ever come? Yes. Of course. We know this because we are not infants. We've lived through this cycle of seasons before. We know that someday the sun will have been shinning for hours before we leave our...

I live in Chicago. I'm dashing out to the car, already late, and discover that Jack Frost has been here, and apparently with ten of his buddies for no delicate design swirls on my windows, but ice that seems to be a solid sheet. Why do I never remember to leave enough time in my schedule in this the onset of winter for scraping the car windows? So I start the car and start looking for the ice scraper. Along the door - no. Under the front seat - no. In the back seat - no. In the trunk - no. Aargh ! Last year I had three scrapers in my car and now I can't find a single one. Back into the house I go, down to the basement, here, there and everywhere - not an ice scraper to be seen. I don't even want to look at my watch and see how late I am now. Desperate, I resort to the only tool I have...from my wallet I pull out a store rewards card and away we go - the funny thing is that the card actually works, not because it's a wonderful ice scraper but because the ice has softened...

It’s winter in Chicago, which doesn’t have the same connotations as, let’s say, winter in Yellowstone - a pristine snowy whiteness covering everything…no, it’s winter in Chicago which doesn't mean that things aren't covered, they are; the cars, the roads , the sidewalks and the signs, but they're not covered in snow, they're covered in a layer of salt. Every car is the same grayish color as the car next to it with slight undertones of the color the car actually is, peeping through the salt. For whatever reason, there is never windshield wiper fluid in the cars that I drive. I get this thin film of kicked up salt and gunk that dries on there and when the sun shines it’s even harder to see where you are going. So, there are those times, that I finally stop at a gas station and clean off my windshield and I am always amazed at how bad it was once it’s clean. Before it was bothersome but it wasn’t that bad, until I get it back to the way it’s supposed to be and then I reali...