..spring indeed (grumble)

The equinox has come and gone and we in the northern hemisphere are now getting more sunlight than darkness. Provided, of course, that the clouds allow it to pass through and reach us here on earth.

This does not, apparently, require it to become springlike in any weather fashion. Chilly grey weather has progressively worsened over the course of the week. Today's sleet, snow, and freezing rain (or "wintry mix," as they call it down at the weather channel) actually caused my tutoring job to be canceled today! Which I certainly don't mind, as I was not relishing the idea of driving to Kansas City in this weather.

This would not, by the way, be the ACT tutoring, but GRE tutoring which I've begun with an extremely intelligent woman from Libya. Her challenge will be the GRE verbal, which is of course a challenge even for English-speaking native sons.

Anyway, I'm crossly stationed in my apartment, unwilling to do the bundling required to face windchill of even 20 degrees. Since the weather does tend to have a pretty big impact on my mood, I've been cranky lately.

Last night was my first night back as food expediter at Zig's. People seemed happy to have me. I, in turn, was happy to have a food runner assistant.

Still, it felt like old times when I rolled up and had to bend my head to the windy cold, since I last worked there in December. I suppose if I got random 60-degree days in January, I must also accept random freezing rain and sleet in late March.

Blah, I say!

The grass has begun to green! The trees, to bud!

The photo doesn't really capture the way the wind is blowing those clumpy flakes around.


Hey, ice layer, hey.

Winter

In early December, the cold came with a vengeance. I was convinced, since the Midwest could be nothing like the South, and thanks to the words of those living here longer than I, that after that first vicious freeze, I would have to tough it out, huddled under a pile of blankets in my apartment while it never got above 26 degrees ghastly grey outside my snow-covered door.

And in December, it was pretty rough. There were periods of time wherein it would not, in fact, come above freezing for many days at a time. I was bewildered and amazed to drive on snow-covered roads (because they would not cancel school for so little..!) and iced parking lots. We went days without seeing the sun behind the thick blanket of snow-bearing clouds. I would wake to find the temperature readout at 1 (okay, that was only once, but really? 7 isn't much better!).

But then, randomly and with little warning, there would be days, or spans of two days, with temperatures reaching into the 50s. Then the 60s. Last week we got to 71. A local was known to say "Well, it's Kansas. It can be in the fifties one day, and back down to 16 the next." Someone neglected to tell me about these high-temperature breakthroughs.

But I'm very glad to have had them. Instead of a long stretch of uninterrupted bleakness, I have been given a day here and there of amazing warmth! I strolled in a dress not so very long ago. If I can have a day like that once in a while, the winter won't be so hard. And I always viewed winter here as the 'hardest part.' So, mentally speaking, the hardest part isn't so hard as I thought. And February is halfway over!

The wind really is the chilling-est factor. Without it, the sun would do a lot to warm us all.

I do hope it snows one more good time, though. I haven't yet been in town and free to sled down the apartment hill (there are hills in Kansas, yes) or take snow-photos in the nearby park. (Soon I can post summer and fall photos, though! Winter ones so far only look like fall, without the leaves)