Cautiously Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I guess the heroin epidemic is bad enough now my local weather app is urging me to make sure I’m tested for Hepatitis C.  Welcome to the Ohio Valley:  Unpredictable weather let me introduce you to the needle and the spoon!

It’s finally here, the Midwest meets the latest and greatest in winter shenanigans when the Artic front pushes through this week.  Next week they will call it the Polar Express when it gets silly cold, and by January I’m sure they will have some other headline-grabbing name for an extreme cold front that moves in.  I’ve got one for you…can we name it the “It’s freaking cold” front and move on with it.  I swear they called these Alberta Clippers things when I was a kid and that was it.  Your parents bundled you up like you were going on a boy scout expedition in Antarctica, and you secretly hoped that mystical stuff known as snow would grant you a few days off school.

I was robbed of any major snow falls in my childhood.  So, of course, the weather gods made sure to smack me around a few times in the last 25 years with some epic snowstorms.  Young Skipah couldn’t wait for a frozen droplet of water to hit the ground, adult Skipah wishes he would have gotten that four-year degree in Bio-Mechanics and was pounding Mai Tai’s in the winter washing sand out of my toes laughing at snowbound New Englanders.  The Blizzard of ’78 (I was two years old then, that doesn’t count), the Martin Luther King Day Storm in 1994 (I was a senior), The Forgotten Snowstorm in 1998 (my hatred of the powder was just blossoming), and The Holiday Storm that dumped two feet and change in 2004.  That’s any major snowstorm I been involved with in my life.  Because of those four storms, the mere mention of flurries sends the locals ransacking shelves in what can only be described as comical or stupid depending on where you fall on the snow paranoia debate.  Yeast, fowl, and bovine products become hotter than the current streak stock market the is on.

Now that you have a little background, let me get to my point.  I HATE WINTER, I HATE SNOW, I HATE 12-13 HOURS A DAY OF DAYLIGHT, I hate it all!  It gets below 50 degrees and my inner psyche gets a tad cranky.  Anybody that lives north of me and can put up with the absurdity that is winter, I tip my cap to them.  I hear you snickering native northerner, kiss my butt, when you live in a part of the world that gets cold enough to freeze Lake Superior over, I call you insane for staying there.  I would snap faster than a Chinese toothpick if I had to live through my own personal Nordic Challenge every winter.

Hold on, Miss Madison (the pride and joy of Austin, Minnesota) just called me a slang term for a kitty cat because of my propensity to turn into a whining bitch in cold weather.  I’m now completely offended, and I’m taking my laptop and going to hide and pout in the corner.  Channeling my inner millennial here.  Oh wait, I’m freaking forty; I don’t get to claim millennial status.

Since we decided as a blended family earlier this year to get a puppy, if you count three girls sending you puppy pics with images of aww, can we keep her, and she’s coming home, you are at work and can’t stop us as a blended family democracy then yeah, I’m all in.  I think North Korea has more open democratic debates, but not trying to start a political science discussion today.  What does our little puppy Karma like to do?  Walk, piss, poop, and eat.  On any day, the order is different, but all four are essential facets of life for a puppy.

I saw through those puppy dog eyes!  I saw into her soul, and it told me nothing would be safe in the house for years to come!

So, who draws the short straw for puppy walking on a rather robust 18-degree evening in vacation destination Madison, Indiana?  That’s right it would be Mr. Antifreeze himself, Mr. Skipah.  With Miss Madison battling some genetic mutation of whooping cough and the shark flu, I once again showed chivalry isn’t dead and put on 21 layers of clothes and took the fur patrol out for her nightly investigative hunt for varmints.  Eighteen degrees may be free heating for Eskimos, for me it’s like walking around in less clothing than a porn star live on camera.  Of course, my nipples are perked up due to the temps not because I have a crush on the illiterate pool boy who is built like a chiseled statue and got his acting degree from Trump University.

Do you know who else loves cold weather?  Dogs, that’s who.  I guess when you are covered from head to toe in hair, the cool air is a welcome change of pace from panting profusely and eyeballing the deep freeze like a juicy T-bone.  Karma, our little female fur ball, likes to prance around in the cold air like she just got mated by a grand champion Bullmastiff stud.  The only thing missing in her gait in the crisp air is a glass of wine and her favorite cigarette.  I, on the other hand, must shiver from head to toe and try to hold my cell phone steady so I can take pictures.  Having a cell phone at the ready for photographic excellence is in Chapter 5 Paragraph 3.2 in the Blogger Handbook.

With my trusty steed by my side, we set out to make sure the area concrete and asphalt were up to code.  Karma was more interested in peeing on potential mole fornication rendezvous sites, but she also made sure that no overzealous rabid Star Wars fans were practicing their inner Jedi by sneak attacking us with lightsabers on their way to camp out in the frigid temperatures for the opening this Friday.  These people are also either comical or stupid depending on what side of the Star Wars debate you side with.  Personally, I like to quote the honorable Mr. Hand, “These people are all on dope!”

Hopefully, no werewolves are out tonight!

Karma preaches abstinence with our local mole population, when they don’t listen she takes matters into her own hands!

I swear the latest and greatest in Christmas lights has turned into some kind of arms race.

Standing at attention in case she has to kick a storm troopers ass!

We made sure Karma didn’t leave any reindeer droppings at this holiday spectacle!

About it for now, I need to wrap this before I make another tasteless sex joke and get put on the NC-17 list.  I also received top secret intel that Christmas is coming soon, so I probably need to start shopping at jewelry craft stores for Miss Madison.  She doesn’t need any Blood Diamonds for Christmas she needs one of those high dollar Cricut machines for her yet to be launched craft business.  Why in the hell would she need a diamond anyway?

BJ’s wholesale website - DHGate.com
Send Skipah Sailing!

25 Comments

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  2. I hear ya on the cold Gary. Stay warm and Happy Holidays. 🙂

  3. Sorry for the cold Gary - I hate cold weather also. Stay warm my friend.

  4. Dogs and COLD weather. not always a fun combo! It was 45 degrees today when I took Aero out for his afternoon constitutional, sweater and all. I was bundled up (north wind brought wind chill down to cold for California! Be careful out there. Gary!

  5. I’m with you about hating winter! We’ve just had two days of snow and now there’s freezing rain. Dangerous! Karma is absolutely adorable. 🙂 Puppies are challenging, for sure, but they do grow up eventually. Keep warm!
    Debbie D. recently posted…SPECTACULAR LIGHTFEST AT NIAGARA FALLS #WWMy Profile

  6. The weather is really crazy lately. I grew up in Pa and there were many snowstorms. I remember being bundled and bundling my own kids and they too would sneak those hats off,
    heidi recently posted…Beauty On A Budget: How To Look Beautiful For lessMy Profile

  7. I like this weather pretty well. Not the teens, or below zero or anything where the wind bites my face, but 20’s are fine by me 🙂
    And my dog, who was born in Georgia, but she doesn’t even care. I usually let her run amok in the back while I shovel or get the mail or whatever. I’m the mid-day person with the dog, sometimes the morning person or the evening person, but always before I leave for work. The Mister is always her last call person. Haha, poor guy.
    joey recently posted…Is Friday Still Happy, Even When It’s Not So Funny?My Profile

  8. Lol, I actually have a cold allergy. I get hives, welts, itching, swelling the whole toot, so yeah, snow is not my thing. Good thing it doesn’t snow here!

  9. Diamond? Foreshadowing?

  10. I’m with you when it comes to cold weather. Thankfully, I live in Florida and eat oranges from the tree in my front yard right now. 🙂

    Very funny post.

  11. I’m with Kay. I’m “cool” with the snow and cold up to Christmas and then I want Spring/heat pronto! Stay warm, my friend, those dog walks can be ruff. Sorry, hard to resist.
    RC Liley recently posted…Nutrition is Key: Are You Limiting Your Kids’ Potential?My Profile

  12. I love snow around Christmas time, after that? It can take its cold wet self back up North where it belongs!! Walk safely! Karma is super cute! She’s grown so much!
    Kay recently posted…Amazon AdventuresMy Profile

  13. Ha! It’s weeks like this that cause this native northener and her southern-born husband to reconsider our life choices. I have to think that the first settlers in MN had a really mild first winter. Then, when the polar vortex hit the following year they all looked at each other and said, “Well crap! We’re stuck” Some poor husband must’ve gotten nagged for the rest of his life with, “I TOLD you stopping here was a bad idea!” I will admit, though, that as much as I hate the cold…getting into a car with vinyl seats in Louisiana in July made me go more insane than the cold ever has. Stay warm!
    Susan Landry recently posted…Food for Thought #11My Profile

    • I’ll take heat and humidity every day over wearing 20 lbs of clothing! Granted neither choice is pleasant. I used that same line of reasoning on Minnesota being settled. Great minds think alike!

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