ode to january



A friend of mine recently posted

on his blog how his son woke up

and looked outside at our foggy,

inversion covered valley and

asked the question, "Is this

what heaven looks like?"

I shuddered and said "Oh PLEASE!

NO! send me straight to hell if

this is what heaven looks like."

Seriously!

NO, seriously!

(and just as an aside:  what if the
phrase "Go to hell!" actually has
NOTHING at all to do with the
devil and his brood all hanging
out together in their molten lava
pit of despair?  WHAT IF this
phrase were invented on some dark,
dreary winters day in the far
reaches of time.  Oh lets say
in the Salt Lake Valley before the
invention of houses and heat and windows.

And flush toilets.

Or in New York City following a blizzard
when the early settlers of our great
country were sitting around a
roaring fire, dreaming of perhaps
being the first settlers of
HAWAII instead of New England?
What if on one of those cold and
dreary nights someone leaned over to
their comrade and said "Oh just go
to hell!"  and instead of thinking
of Satan, they were thinking of the Sahara?
(desert that is)....

See, so maybe it wasn't a bad thing-
maybe it was just a nice way of saying

"Go warm yourself!"

I'm only saying, you never know!

And mostly this is tongue in cheek--so

just have a little laugh with me, OK?)

Back to my post...

I loathe January and all

the dreary, depressing, sunless,

cold, frigid, inversion layered,

foggy, wet, dripping days.

Recently I went to breakfast

with some girlfriends.  They

were feeling even more depressed
with this month than I!

There were tears, stories of

reclusively staying at home,

sad stories, depressing stories, 

and more. (Could there BE more?)

I said we needed to head south

and warm next January for a fun

trip in search of the sun.

I'm not sure if anyone

really agreed or not--but I

do know as we were leaving

the restaurant the sun

WAS shining!  If only for a

brief and fleeting moment.

But we saw sun and know that it

does exist beyond all of

this awful gunk somewhere

out there.

Yes Virginia, there REALLY
IS a sun!  Do you believe?

So, with only two days left

in the month here is my

ODE TO JANUARY...

You Suck!

(yes, that's it!  you were

expecting more?  well, that's it!)