Not Going Any Where- Fast or Otherwise

How's that for a metaphor for our lives at present? A snowed in door! And the drift of snow is not the only impediment! That icicle to the left is ominous. I'm not going to further regale my audience with further woes of winter's tales... except that I'm scheduled to participate in an artist's talk on Sunday at Odetta Gallery in Brooklyn and it's supposed to be like 4 degrees with 70 mile an hour winds and maybe (aaaarrrrggggh!) more snow!!
But we'll take one day at a time... be all Zen. Maybe the gods will smile and will send us blue skies and happier trails. We can only hope!
But Bob, thinking ahead as tomorrow is supposed to bring us more.... flowers! Saturday is bringing us flowers! Saturday is Valentine's Day, after all.

Look at that lovely bouquet! I'm so happy! Beautiful, colorful, amazing flowers. Temporarily, my winter dreads have been driven away. For the next 24  hours, I promise to not innumerate the various and many things that my gloves stuck to this morning while delivering Maggie her morning water: the gate, the barn door, the stall bucket handle, the outside bucket (pulling the glove right off my hand), the outside door handle- and on and on. I literally froze to everything. But banish that thought. Tonight through tomorrow, I promise to vacation in my mind. But come Sunday, I'll be crazy mad if the weather doesn't cooperate. How long can this last?!?!?!

Grumble Grumble Grumble

For Christmas, I bought Bob a butterfly chair and along with it (as it had been an auction lot) was this painting. Sort of a bonus and I found it rather charming. Fortunately, Bob liked it too, and even thought it looked a lot like our backyard, with the deck and potted plant and the view through our spindly pine and spruce trees. It also looks a lot like a place I'd rather be than stuck here in the friggin' Winter Wonderland!
I know I have lots of company in the hating of this eternal winter so I'm going to complain for a paragraph or two. A community vent! That' all anyone is talking about- at the gas station, the post office, the checkout at the grocery store. And we're supposed to have three straight days of the stuff. Enough already!
How about one of those famous bulleted lists?

• I detest the combo platter of too much snow AND really frigid temperature. Please: one or the other would be sufficient.
• I hate the fact that I have to keep schlepping buckets of water to my poor horse Maggie who thinks she's been exiled to Siberia. (She has; just don't let her in on that). My arms have been permanently stretched. I look like a gorilla.
• My morning walks- the only real chance to get exercise- is shorter as the dirt road is covered in twelve inches of slippery snow (ice conveniently hidden underneath) and it's so damned cold that no matter what I wear, my nose is exposed and freezes. I had icicles on my eye lashes for god's sake!
• Do you really feel creative when all those "creative juices" are barely flowing and need antifreeze? Besides, how inspiring is endless white and frostbitten fingers? 
• People- including friends- are crabby and depressed thanks to evil weather. Who can blame them? Except we're all in this together and we'd better be nice!
• I used to like Ground Hog's Day. And then it became this stupid stunt where nasty politicians pick up and drop defenseless animals... and kill them! (It happened). Who can blame on of the ground hogs for biting its handler? Leave the furry little things alone! No wonder they predict more winter. They hate us.
• I don't particularly like the fact that it takes me ten minutes to get dressed appropriately to go outside. Too many layers and by the time you're dressed you don't really feel like going outside anyway.
• Then you come back in and create piles and piles of wet clothes. Every time you go out, you produce gloves, sock, pants, hats, scarves and long under wear that require drying. I had to buy more gloves and socks as nothing dried quickly enough for donning for the next foray into the Arctic. And of course we all leave wet trails all over the house. Floors a mess...
• I'm getting fatter by the minute. Blame the lack of exercise (see above) and way too much comfort food. Hell, we need comforting but I can't stop eating. There's not much else to do.
• I haven't even been a regular blog poster because the weather has been too awful. This is the result; a boring diatribe about the weather.
• At least we've been sleeping well. But I attribute that to a desire to permanently hibernate. Wake us up when it's over.
• Are we done whining yet? Any one want to add anything? People driving like assholes despite lousy road conditions? Huge piles of snow at the ends of driveways and secondary roads that make pulling out into traffic seriously hazardous? The fact that I looked ahead to next weeks weather and it's no better? In fact it's even colder??? Stop!!!!!!