Stupid, stinking winter

I absolutely detest winter.

That's one of the reasons I love living in Arkansas. Winters are mild and I've seen one foot of snow on the ground maybe three times in my life.

Right now, however, we're dealing with threats of ice and snow across the Natural State and I hate it. An inch or more of ice has fallen in a lot of areas in the northern half of the state and it appears some of that junk may hit here in central Arkansas by morning.

That's a huge problem, of course, as a funny thing happens when you dump a lot of frozen participation on people who aren't used to it -- we Arkies can't drive on this garbage so car wrecks are common when there's any ice at all on the roads. Also, sleet and freezing rain tends to weigh down pine trees, thus causing branches to snap power lines. There's nothing worse than dealing with cold, miserable weather and sitting in a dark house for a few days.

Thank God we've got a fireplace here at Casa de Hawg in case we lose power. There's a funny thing about our fireplace logs, however -- they're magic. I need to find some more of this wood and build a house with it because this stuff doesn't burn worth a damn. If a fire ravages my home, we'd lose everything but those blasted, flame resistant logs.

So I've spent the evening watching the weather, hoping that steady rain outside doesn't turn into sleet at some point, cussing fireplace logs and generally being cold and miserable. Even the central heating in my house is against me -- it's running just fine, but I can't shake that miserable chill I always get when it's too cold and too wet outside.

Frankly, I never understood people who enjoy this slop. I was in Iowa one December for a week and the high temperature during that time was 8 degrees. I'd make some comment about how cold it was and I learned Iowa residents love to brag about how cold it gets.

"This isn't cold," they'd say. "I'll tell you all about cold. Why, there was one winter when it was so cold that the dog froze to death and bloppity, bloppity, blah, blah, blah."

Phooey on that. I did admire something about those winter-loving Iowa folks, though. If a blizzard hit, they'd simply wake up, plow the streets and go about their business like nothing happened. Here in Arkansas, we shut down entire towns for a couple of days if a snowflake hits the ground and sticks.

I do hear people gripe about our hot, humid summers in Arkansas. Again, phooey. If you're too hot, quit being a sissy, put on a pair of shorts and have a glass of iced tea. You can deal with summer, see, but this winter stuff is for the birds. I'd much rather put on a pair of shorts and sweat a little bit then slide across my driveway, attack my windshield with one of those ice scrapers that never seem to work right and dodge maniacs who haven't figured out that a four-wheel-drive vehicle will slide into a ditch the same as any other car when you slam on the brakes.

Fortunately, ice and snow are unusual here as 40 and 50-degree days are common in the winter. Still, we've got a couple of months left to worry about Mother Nature being an absolute bitch and dumping a bunch of ice on us.

I'm looking forward to April.