I Heart Phil

Punxsutawney Phil is totally my homeboy. The world’s most famous groundhog saw his shadow yesterday thus predicting six more weeks of winter.

Yay for me, boo for you! I love winter. I do not have a problem with things like ground blizzards, ice storms, and major winter events that might dump 10 inches of snow on my house.

I once drove to the store in the middle of a blizzard to buy supplies (alcohol and a movie). It did not even bother me that I had to drive the car with my head hanging out the window like a dog in order to see the road. It was my own personal REO Speedwagon moment because I was so ridin’ the storm out.

One night when I was in my twenties, the weatherman on the news was warning everyone to stay inside and not leave their homes due to dangerously frigid wind chill temperatures. Lisa and I thought it would be a better idea to go to Plaza Pub, drink ourselves silly, and dance on our chairs.

We then thought it would be an even BETTER idea to go over to Kent’s house after the bar closed to join a bunch of people partying in the hot tub.

Then it seemed like an even BETTER idea to challenge each other to run around the perimeter of the house in our bare feet to see who could make it back to the hot tub first.

I had so much ice built up on the soles of my feet that I accidentally overshot the hot tub and skidded into some trees at the end of the property. Someone managed to grab the neck of my t-shirt and pull me back before I hurt myself.

The death flu I came down with thirty-six hours later is not my favorite part of this story.

In the summertime, if the weatherman predicts a dangerously high heat index I have no problem not leaving my air conditioned house for the next twenty four hours and will pay Matthew or Lauren to bring in the paper and mail for me so I don’t have to go outside.

We could use some snow right now. A lot of it melted last weekend, which exposed a big layer of what Chloe has been doing in the front yard all winter. Either we need snow to cover it back up or someone needs to get out there with a pooper-scooper because we are going to look pretty ghetto if this continues.

Sometimes I wonder if I have the opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder because instead of getting sad when the days get shorter, I get happier. My favorite month is October because that means that winter is not far away and I like the anticipation of colder weather, the holidays, and snow. I also like cloudy days and spring is my least favorite season so perhaps I am not right in the head.

I am kind of excited for this summer though. Dave and I are looking forward to spending time with Tom and Amy at their lake house. In addition, we cannot wait to get out on our patio so we can start annoying Neal and Sandy as soon as possible.

Until then I will continue monitoring the weather channel for impending winter storms. We have a good chance of at least one blizzard in March.

Dave really wants to buy a hot tub some day. Phil and I are totally on board with that.