Winter's Discontent

@deseretnews.com

Now is the winter of our discontent.

"Richard III" - William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare coined that prophetic phrase in 1594. Four hundred and twenty one - 421 - years later, I would say, without doubt, that we are truly in our own winter of discontent.

Why, you ask?

The snow. The shoveling. Throw in some delightful wind chill. Then more snow. Then more shoveling. It's turned into a vicious cycle. It's like we are on a never-ending hamster wheel in Satan's playground and, quite frankly, we are ready to get off. Perhaps the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I have both have a raging case of seasonal affective disorder (also known as SAD, without a hint of irony). Who knows? But as we crept down our hill on the snow-packed road this morning to go get some religion, we both looked at each other with a knowing look that said, 'It's enough already.' True that.

A state of discontentment can actually be a good thing. It's usually an uncomfortable state to be in and it's not something you want to wallow in. Unless of course you like that state of mind. However, if managed appropriately, discontentment spurns change. I think it's safe to say we are ready for that here. While we have no control over the shrewish and angry hag that is Mother Nature, I am determined she will not get the better of us.

I'm taking this quote from the late Gandhi to heart: 

@quotes.lifehack.org

Progress it is. Progress it shall be. In the meantime, Mother Nature, you won't win this one, even if it kills me.

hyperbole

@mywordwizard.com

According to the good word nerds at dictionary.com, the word hyperbole is defined as follows:

obvious and intentional exaggeration

Yeah, that seems right. For any of you who either live or have found yourselves along the Eastern seaboard and the Northeastern part of the United States in the last few days, you know all to well what hyperbole means. Why? Because you have sat through a veritable tsunami of unrelenting hyperbole from any number of weather prognosticators. Hah, see what I did there? Threw in my own bit of hyperbole.

It's become as predictable as death and taxes. A weather event presents itself and the weather prognosticators and their cohorts across the studio in the form of anchors and producers create drama bigger than the storm itself. Dramatic 'storm' theme music is introduced. A lame hashtag is introduced (#blizzard15 I'm talking to you). B-roll footage of empty grocery store shelves are played endlessly. Can we talk a minute about the 'run' on grocery stores? Why the run on bread? Are we that ill-prepared as a nation that not a one of us has more than a one days' supply of food on hand? What are we, people? Living off the land? Um, no. It is insanity.

It all played out again over the course of the last few days as Winter Storm Juno sprung out of nowhere. Media went into overdrive here in the 'stan as well as our surrounding states. 20 - 24 inches and raging winds were predicted for us. What did we get? Maybe six, maybe eight inches of snow and some strong, swirling gusts. Power stayed on for the duration of the horrific event. I didn't even need to tap into my secret reserve of Coke Zero to power through it all.

It's all this hyperbole that explains why I pretty much ignore local news coverage. I'll stick to the Twitter for my news, thank you very much. Honestly if we hadn't gone over to see some friends on Sunday night I wouldn't have known about this non-event. Now, to be fair, I'm all kinds of glad I'm not in the Boston area, where the hype met the experience. It was an EVENT there.

I think I'll go make waffles for dinner now. How else can one properly recover from all this weather terror?

Slipping and Sliding

This. Kind of this.

Paul Simon, he who did not sport the bad white guy perm, of Simon and Garfunkel, penned a song called "Slip Slidin Away." The opening verse goes like this:

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

Those lyrics became all too real for us as we drove home from getting religion earlier this afternoon. As we motored up the hill to our home, the more we found ourselves sliding away from it. This is NOT, I repeat, NOT a good feeling when you are slipping backward in a GMC Yukon the size and weight of an armed artillery tank. We owe this slippery sensation to that she-shrew, the one and only Mother Nature. She decided to get freaky today.

Things took a weird turn as we drove to Church early this morning. When we left the house, it was not quite raining or sleeting but it was like a frozen mist was falling. No big whoop, I thought, as we drove. Then, out of nowhere, our windshield was frozen over. 'That escalated quickly,' I thought to myself. It felt like we were in a scene from a craptastic disaster movie (thy name is 'The Day After Tomorrow'). Walking through the Church parking lot into the building was a slippery affair but once we were inside, I didn't give it much further thought. I was speaking in Church today so was a little more focused on that than what the aforementioned she-shrew was going to do during our services.

Three hours later (and no, I did not speak for three hours. I mean I can go on and on but not for three hours-have mercy!), it is now pouring rain but because everything is already frozen over, the rain really has nowhere to go. That's where things turned very interesting getting up the long hill to our home. Since the rain had nowhere to go, it pretty much turned to ice. Suffice to say, my tank did not like the conditions. Frankly, neither did the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML. Her death grip on both the door handle and her seat belt was quite impressive. Impressive, in the end, was the performance of my environmentally offensive, but totally awesome, Yukon. She may not have liked it and the groaning from her engine made that clear, but we got home safely.

I am now glancing out the window from the warmth of my basement while I take my online driving school course. While in Arizona for Thanksgiving a few months ago, I may or may not have been captured on a traffic cam exceeding the posted speed limit somewhere in Gila County. Um...have you been to Gila County? You'd speed too but like I said, may or may not. Allegedly. This is four hours of my life I'm not getting back either.  Good times.