Cold Shoulder

I like winter activities in abstract. I’ve enjoyed cutting out paper snowflakes, buying cute mittens, and watching “Frosty the Snowman” every Christmas. I think snow angels look cool, ski lifts look exhilarating, and steaming hot chocolate looks delicious. I understand the appeal of winter stuff--it’s the practical application where my interest wanes. As I’ve admittedly mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of the cold. And by fan, I mean having any love for. And by cold, I mean below 70 degrees. I embrace my weather wimphood with Southern California-born, Golden State-bred, sun-soaked pride, but I can understand, in theory, the attraction of the white stuff. I would much rather stay in the crackling-fire lodge than go down the mountain, but there is something impressive about the folks who swoosh with style. I could never swoosh with anything but the dangerous awkwardness where emergency room visits are born, so I have to envy the ones who can. I have always wanted to be the kind of person who loads up the car with inner tubes and hits the roadside slopes with all my winter-loving friends, but all I can think about when contemplating such a day is that there is no way my toes will stay warm enough to make the tubing worth it. Wimpy, I know. But it’s who I am. In Shirley Neitzel’s The Jacket I Wear In The Snow, one little girl crashes her sled…but thanks to a million layers of clothes, it’s no harm, no foul.

http://www.amazon.com/Jacket-I-Wear-Snow/dp/0688045871

http://www.shirleyneitzel.com/activities.htm

Weather Report

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a So Cal girl, born and bred, so warm weather is important for my psyche. I love New York, no cliché, I really do, but I couldn’t live there in January. I think Chicago is one of the most vibrant cities I’ve ever been in, but one big storm and I’d be outta there. I imagine myself as one of those gaudy, giant-hat-wearing biddies on the beach someday. If I could live anywhere, it wouldn’t be a place where it snows--except maybe a place where it snows once in a hundred years and the news makes the front page of the newspaper. That would be acceptable. I know that those of us who love the sun are legion (Are there any songs about Minnesota girls? Are postage stamp-sized pieces of property a million dollars in Iowa?), but, to my surprise, we aren’t the only game in town. And this time of year always reminds me of that with people glorifying snow, traveling to snow, and lamenting the lack of snow. I still find the snow fixation a bit mystifying--no airport was ever closed for too much nice weather and no car ever slid on patches of sun--but there are diehards who find the benefits outweigh the negatives. Apparently, they’ve got company. In Margaret and H.A. Rey’s Curious George In The Snow, the monkey who’s game for anything goes ape for the white stuff. What does he know? He’s a monkey.

http://www.amazon.com/Curious-George-Snow-H-Rey/dp/039591907X

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/cgsite/history.shtml