here comes the sun... right?

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter 

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here 

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun 

and I say it's all right...
(G. Harrison, et al)

Weather.. It's a legitimation for complaining, right?

I talk to my mother almost every day (...golf clap...). Usually I call her on the way to work or traveling from one place to another during the day. Cell phones are great for things like this--it makes it very easy to stay in touch. Of course, the downside is that we used to use this time for thinking... Anyway, no matter how short the conversation, we always mention the weather. Part of this is because my mom lives in Iowa and people in Iowa have earned the right to not only talk about but complain about the weather. Of course, I live in North Carolina so I am generally countering my mom's pain with "No, actually it's blue skies and perfect here again today."

Less so lately though!

Frankly, I am hesitant to complain. I've seen lousy weather and this ain't it... Even so, here some interesting facts that I have learned this week:
• In the month of February, Charlotte had 4 days at or above average temp for this month and 24 days below average... I couldn't find reliable precipitation data but it seems safe to say that the drought is over...
• My sister lives in Sand Point, Idaho where the annual rainfall average is 34" and the annual snowfall average is 71". They have had next to nothing this winter...
• Meanwhile, Iowa is enuring the second worst winter on record and it might reach #1...


Of course, all this means next to nothing. But it does give us something to talk about.

When I was serving a parish in Watauga County, there was a woman in the church who used to get physically sick during the winter. The cloudy days would literally make her depressed. She would typically lock herself in her home for much of December and January. I think she probably had the money to spend those months in Florida but it never seemed to dawn on her to do that...

So I guess the point here is that if you are getting a little sick of all this, don't be surprised. And hang in there. I suspect that it will be warming up here one of these days. Although not this week--the weatherman said that there is another cold front coming to North Carolina this week...

One final complaint. It's not weather related... The Olympics are over. They were good as always... But NHL players, really? Who wants to see professional Americans playing professional Canadiens for the championship of what used to be amateur competition?

I was 15 in 1980 when USA won the gold. I played hockey and it was great to see college kids competing against the world's best. Seeing NBA and NHL Dream Teams just makes me tired. They could at least make them play outside or something. Now that would be interesting, how about they get a firetruck out to the Field of Dreams (there really is a place btw) and have those guys go at it in a frozen corn field. Or get Kobe and Lebron to play the Summer Olympics on a dirt court in Kenya. I'd watch that...