The End of Winter

The calendar has changed to Spring, and so has the Michigan weather. This should be a good thing, so why does it annoy me so much. I'll list (and do my best to explain) some of my reasons for not being 100% pleased with the end of Winter.

1. The Spring weather is more than slightly fickle. One day last week the temperature was all the way into the high 70's. Of course this means that any winter clothing, coats or insulating layers of fat should be discarded to prevent excessive perspiration. The next morning, the temperature was around 50 degrees, which would have still been nice if it weren't the highest temperature we had all day. By lunch, MK decided that she needed to make a quick run in to Target to get a hooded sweatshirt to wear in her office. Which brings us to point number two...

2. The instant Spring officially begins, all stores remove any merchandise that might be winter related. It was in the mid-30's, misting and windy when we went to Target. All we needed was a hooded sweatshirt so that MK didn't freeze in an office that had already switched to air conditioning the day before. Yeah, right. Women's section: Nothing. Maybe we can just find one in the men's section: Not there either. Back into the cold we went, empty handed.

3. Spring means rain, flowers and, in my neighborhood, a constant cloud of acrid, throat-burning smoke. As I sit here writing this, I'm suffocating because one of our neighbors has decided that the warmer weather is much better for burning. Typically the burn piles on our street consist of leaves and maybe a few limbs downed in the most recent storm. Tonight, however, it smells as if the neighbor felt that rather than recycling, it would be much easier to just put all his plastic bottles in a pile in the yard and light them.

4. More issues with clothing. Spring means the switch from normal clothing-you know, the type that most people would wear-to hideous colors out of place anywhere but on an Easter egg. In the mail this weekend, I received a copy of the new Land's End Men catalog. As I leafed through the catalog, I found that unless I wanted to buy pants in "light coral" or a "pale jonquil" polo shirt, I wasn't going to be purchasing anything from this catalog. You've got to love the Spring colors.

5. I can't wear my coat. Despite how it sounds, this isn't an issue of vanity. The real issue is what happens when I need to go to work in the morning. I get dressed, get everything together and prepare to go out the door. Let's make sure I have everything. Cell phone: check. iPod: check. Sunglasses, check book, badge: check, check, check. A way to carry everything...no. If I have my coat, I have an inside pocket specifically for the check book, one for the cell phone, and one for glasses (sun or otherwise). The iPod and badge fit easily into the outside pockets along with the dozen or so notes I have written myself, but haven't done anything with yet (call this person, check this out from the library, fill this prescription). Now that it's Spring and the weather is warm, I can't wear my coat, but I still need to carry the same things. I could start putting some of these things into the pockets of my pants, but that just creates bulges that can only be described as unflattering. I'm going to have to figure this out soon or I'm going to end up carrying a man-bag to work everyday. It's one thing in school. You carry a backpack like every other student. Work as a professional and unless you're having a to carry a laptop, that bag's just a purse. All you need is to toss in some gum and a few stray Kleenex.

Until later...