Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts

I Resolve Not to Make Resolutions

 I don't do resolutions, because failing is a terrible way to start a new year.

If you make a major life change, do it gradually. A New Year's Resolution is like someone who never exercised deciding to run a marathon--tomorrow. Get healthy? Absolutely. Go cold turkey from cigarettes and snack food on January 2nd? That's why violent incidents go up on January 3rd.

Having said that, for some people stopping all at once is the only way to accomplish it, and I'm all for accomplishing something. So if you want to make a serious resolution, more power to you. Just remember, the proper response to nicotine withdrawal is not second degree murder. Not even third degree.

Well, maybe third.

For me, the best time to make life changes is spring. Why? Because in spring, I care about life. In January, I only want to turn the oven on low, wrap myself in a blanket, and climb inside. It's the only place I can get warm. I really don't care what happens elsewhere, and I wouldn't go out at all if I didn't need money to pay the gas bill. If I did make a New Year's Resolution, it would be to fill up the Ford's fuel tank and Escape south until I drive into salt water.

I have the wife, a full tank, and my Bermuda shorts, and I'm ready to head south.



But spring ... I could do spring. Things are looking up. Green stuff starts appearing. There's sun, except during basketball playoffs, when for some reason there's always ice.

What's up with that? Why is Hoosier Hysteria always accompanied by "Midwest ice storm--film at eleven"?

Sometimes there's an April sleet storm, but generally things are looking up. Sometimes the snow pile at the end of the WalMart parking lot even melts away by Independence Day. I'll walk out the door on March 21st and say, "Now I want to lose weight and give up Mountain Dew! I'll start tomorrow."

Now we're talkin'.


I gave up drinking after my 21st birthday party, which they tell me was a blast. I never did smoke: With my addictive personality, if I started they'd have to bury me with both hands clutching packs of ... I don't know, what brands of cigarettes are they still selling these days? I can't imagine walking a mile for a Camel.

Maybe that's the thing about the New Year: I never got addicted to making resolutions. But hey--there's time for me yet.

The only real resolution I have for this year--which I sincerely hope is better than last year--is to keep on writing. My plan for 2025 is to publish two new books (at least--we'll see) and write at least one other new one. That, and continuing the submission process for some already-written manuscripts, should be enough to keep me out of trouble.

Oh--and book promotion. *sigh*

 



We and our books can be found ... everywhere:

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

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Remember: The easiest resolution is to read more books.



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A Hot Time In Every Town

 I realized while going through old blogs that I write about winter way more often than summer. Like most humor writers, my work is usually about stuff I'd be complaining about anyway, so there you go. But after our two hour air conditioner home maintenance job last week I wanted to complain about summer a bit, so I dredged up this 2016 blog I wrote after helping my in-laws move in southeast Missouri ... in July.


They had to get moved faster than planned, after a car crashed into their old home. For one thing, the bedroom was now the width of a bathtub. It had huge holes in the former walls ... and Missouri mosquitos can punch through walls without help. And finally, the electricity had to be cut off to the home. See above about southeast Missouri—in July.

Here's the difference between that area and where I live, in northeast Indiana. Hoosier weather gets just as hot and humid ... from time to time. It seems like our heat waves last forever, but in reality they rarely go more than a few days. (This week excepted.) In Missouri the humidity pops up to 114% in May, and the temperature doesn't drop below 90 until October. Yes, the humidity's actually more than 100%. It’s a head-scratcher, or maybe that’s the mosquitos.

Flowers still came out in the morning, but in the afternoon they burst into flames.


Their winters are wonderful. I mean, compared to Indiana.

So that led to a few bumps in moving, such as my difficulty seeing because my glasses melted. Going into that trailer was like sticking your head into the stove to see how the all-day Thanksgiving turkey is doing. Leaving the trailer was like going into the kitchen where the turkey's been cooking all day.

It was so hot they had to open the fire hydrants to let steam out.

It was so hot even the politicians stopped talking.

It was so hot we had to put the beverage coolers into cooler coolers.

It was hot, I tell ya'.

Reel-mounted fire extinguishers were mounted by each mailbox, in case the postal delivery arrived in flames.


None of this bothered the mosquitos. The first day we soaked ourselves in bug spray, which also cooled us down until later, when it started boiling off our skin. But I was wearing jeans at first, and when I got the bright idea to try shorts an hour later, I forgot to reapply. By the end of the day my legs looked like an overhead photo of a heavily shelled World War I battleground. I couldn't get more bites touring a doughnut factory.

In the end it was worth it. The in-laws had a nice little place, we visited with some friends, and after regaining consciousness we even got to do some traveling. There's something to be said for helping people out. If I could, I'd go back down there and embrace the whole community with a great big, loving cloud of DDT.

It would still be hot, though.

 

Remember to check your back seat for kids, pets, and ghosts.


 

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Mother Nature Is a Tease

 She pops out for a day, shows a little leg, smiles demurely, and disappears again, leaving her anxious suitors to suffer through more cold and wet. It’s hardly any wonder that the symbol of weather should run hot and cold, but sheesh – enough is enough.

The stupid groundhog predicted an early spring, but he didn't say it would come all at once. What is a groundhog, anyway? It’s a big rat. Set a trap, somebody.

Even more than usual, our weather pattern looks like a heartbeat on an EKG. It reminds me the old days, when I walked to school barefoot, in a raging blizzard every morning and a blistering heat wave in the afternoon. (Uphill both ways, blah blah blah.)

I really should get around to admitting I only lived two blocks from school.

As a result of the bouncing weather, some people say they'd rather it just stay cold all the time. Their brains are still frozen. Saying cold all the time instead of warm some of the time is like saying that, since you can’t eat 24 hours a day, you’d rather just starve. To carry the heavy comparison further, I’d rather weigh 300 pounds but be alive than be the first member of my family to voluntarily starve to death.

Most of my best winter photos are taken from inside. I care less about glare than I do about frostbite.



Summer now goes by much more quickly than it used to, and winter – strange as our recent winters have been – lasts much longer. When I was a kid, the average summer lasted eighteen months. Seriously. I would go out to play after breakfast, and wouldn’t come in again for three days, just in time for lunch. The summer when I turned nine lasted for over six years. It’s a science-fictiony mystery, but there you go. We went down to Kentucky for a two week vacation that lasted so long we had to cut down trees to get the car back on the road.

And it never got hot. Kids could wake up in the hospital with two IV’s in their arms to rehydrate them, and have no idea they were ever overheated. Then they’d go home and run back outside again. Sure, most of us didn’t notice the cold, either, but we sure noticed when we started getting feeling back into our limbs. It was like getting a power pinch from our least favorite aunt – all over.


Isn't this fun? SO much fun. Later I'm having hot chocolate and a good cry.

 

Even the bad things about summer are proof that summer is good:

Bugs? Hate ‘em. But why do they come out during the spring? Because during winter they’re dead. Everything’s dead. It’s a dead season. Mother Nature is dead – the first lightning storm of the spring is like a giant defibrillator, starting her heart back up.

No lawn mowing during winter. Why? Grass is dead. No poison ivy during winter. Why? Dead. Snakes? Dead. No spiders during the winter. (Spiders are not bugs. Bugs are just bugs – spiders are evil.) Even spiders know dead when they see it, although many think it looks like the bottom of my shoe.

Hot and humid is unpleasant, I get that, but nobody's car ever slid into a snowbank because the sun was shining too much. No poor match girl ever froze to death under a shade tree during an Independence Day celebration.

Tornadoes? Terrible things, mile-wide vacuum cleaners. But blizzards have covered half the friggin’ country. Besides, no matter how strong it was, no meteorologist ever mentioned “tornado” in the same sentence as “wind chill”.

Winter even smells dead – spring smells of fresh cut grass, and lilacs, and that earthy scent that comes with a warm summer rain. And yes, it also smells of hot asphalt, and dairy farms, and sweat, but that’s a small price to pay for driving down a country road with the window open and breathing deeply as you pass a cornfield.

 

Pretty, isn't it? And DEAD.
 

 

Almost everything’s green, with patches of other bright colors like spotting a forgotten twenty dollar bill. Green is life. Winter has no color: It’s black and white and dead all over. I could also go for the cliché and mention the sounds – birds, frogs, insects, all more relaxing than the sound of sleet on siding, or furnaces kicking on. Finally, lest we forget, the feel of walking around in shorts and shirtsleeves, without the accompanying frostbite.

Warmth makes everything a little better. Sure, you can’t store your frozen goods on the back porch, but that’s a small price to pay for opening the window and breathing real air.

So come on out, Mother Nature, don’t be a tease. And don’t bother bringing your winter coat.


 

Remember: When wrapped in plastic, books make good umbrellas. Use hardcover.

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