In case you think your friends don’t understand the difference between hot/warm/cold.

I’m sure that you, the reader of my website, are not a jerkhole of any sort, including the temperature/climate type.  Surely, someone with your impeccable taste is intelligent enough and nowhere near enough of an asshat to engage in the behavior I’m addressing with this post.  So please, just let this post serve as a place that you can direct the temperature/climate jerkholes you come into contact with towards, as necessary.

When someone says it’s cold where they are, that means >>news flash<< IT’S COLD WHERE THEY ARE. As in, the temperature is such that they have made the judgment that it’s frickin’ freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth. Or at least very cold. To them.  Which is all that matters about their comment.  This is obvious to people who don’t have their heads up their asses, I’m guessing, but what do I know?

If someone says it’s cold (or hot), I’m thinking, just accept it and move on.  Whatever the temperature is where you are / depth of cold (or intensity of heat) you can withstand / number of brain cells you wish you had horrific weather conditions you are experiencing/have ever experienced – COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.   Feel the need to make a snide remark that insults the person and/or comment that makes everything all about you again?  Please, please resist the stupidity you feel nagging you at that moment.

No, really. The next time you have the urge to say something like “that’s not cold – you don’t know what cold is” or “pfft, that’s nothing, you know how cold it is where I AM?“ to someone, punch yourself in the face one time (both because you deserve it and because you can do so without feeling any pain). Really! Rest assured that it won’t hurt, because somewhere, someone is getting punched in the face HARDER and even MORE THAN ONCE.

You think it would hurt to punch yourself in the face that once?  Pffft.  You don’t know what pain is.

I ate snot. I win.

Being sick in Spring is not fun, wonderful, or delightful.

Being sick in Spring while your toddler is also ragingly sick? Well, that’s about as fun as being a balloon animal at a drunk porcupine convention.

And let me add, you have really not LIVED until you have been force-fed a handful of Honey Nut Scooters (generic brand of Cheerios, for you rich assholes) coated in toddler snot. Until you experience this, your soul just has.not.awakened.

I could be wrong though, since my brain is stuck in this mucky haze which is part “I WANT TO KILL YOU ALL RIGHT NOW WITH MY BARE HANDS” (menstrual hag) and part “OMG I AM DYING, I KNOW IT” (pathetic, whiny, sick douche).

I just… well… he has been SO miserable and sad lately. And his nose has been steadily and continuously leaking sick toddler snot in copious amounts. I try to keep up with it, but most of the time he beats me to it. That little hand just darts up and swipes it away.

And while, yes, this is gross, it’s not nearly as disgusting as that tendency some kids have to try mimicking a cow by sticking their tongues on up into the Snot Fest. So, I’m thanking my stars, here, that my kid hasn’t thought of that yet. (We’ll talk about how he licked snot off his fingers another day, okay?)

Anyway, today, he ran into the living room from the kitchen with a handful of his cereal. He made a bee-line for me on the couch, and since I was kind of slumped over towards the floor (yeah, I’m that pathetic) he had full access to my face. Which delighted him, and he just started shoving the cereal into my face.

He had this sparkle in his eyes as he crammed every last piece in my mouth.  Delight was painted across every inch of his face.  There was absolutely no way in the world I could bring myself to stop him.

His little fingers kept going in with the cereal.  I could detect the flavor of sweet, delicious cereal.

As well as the lovely sensation of cold, sticky, wet sick toddler snot.

And I just kept repeating in my head, “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay, just don’t think about it, don’t think about it, it’s going to be okay….”

I ate snot for my kid today.  WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR KID?

But a memory, as I wait for the spark of Spring.

Today’s Photohunt Theme is “Warm”

What it has to be for the flames of this sunflower to lick at the summer sky.

It’s what I long for, especially in the dead of winter. I’m not a fan of being cold. In fact, I’d rather live a thousand summers than one winter. I despise the pain of being chilled to the bone.

Any temperature that raises itself above the definition of “cold” is my friend.  Warm is nice, but I’m even okay with hot.  Dry heat, humid heat, whatever. Take me to daytime Mercury for crying out loud. Oxygen is highly overrated. I just don’t want it to be COLD.

Jack Frost tried to woo me this winter with a love letter.

And it worked; oh, did I swoon. He sent a shiver down my spine, and I was head over heels.

But he is a typical player. It was but a one night stand. His icy kiss faded fast, leaving me with nothing but chattering teeth and chapped cheeks.

Now, as I wait for the spark of Spring to revive, I’m trying to recall the buzzing of the bees. Their song tells a much sweeter love story.

I’ll close my eyes for awhile and listen to that memory in my head and smell the sweet smell of summers gone by, like a dream. Wait for the flutter of a butterfly to tickle my face as it hurries by, on its way to the next yellow beauty.

And when I have to open my eyes and the cold, bleak, gray of Winter is still peering at me with its icy, slate eyes, I’ll just shrug deeper into my sweater and try to concentrate on other warm things until time turns the pages of the calender for me, again.

If you can’t have it all, take a little.

My fingers are cold.
Upstairs my child is sleeping.
I’m down here alone.

Thermostat set low
in the hopes that next power
bill will be lower.

My toes are so cold.
There’s work to do; I’m too tired -
Emotionally.

A short drive from here
women are laughing, playing.
Warm, happy, together.

Here, it is quiet.
I sit still on the couch and
ignore my numb toes.

Perhaps, in the morn
I’ll join them very briefly.
Just a quick warm up.

The Burdensome, Beautiful Hat

Today’s Photohunt Theme is “Hat”

she waited in the cold.
the darkness came.
like magic it fell, all around.

like a hat,
an icy burden built.
atop her it rested.

all night she struggled,
through the dark,
to stay erect.

when day broke
and light exploded
her burden glowed.

it remained heavy
and, although difficult to bear,
it allowed beauty, before unseen,
to shine through her.

Same old, same old.

It’s inevitable.

All spring and summer long (but for bouts of the bitchiness I’m cursed with, both by Nature and Nurture) I spend my time climbing the ladder.

I kick my feet back into the air after each step up, with a little grinning head toss and a shimmying booty shake, as I climb up, and up and up. Is that a spicy little theme song playing?

I hum a song as I let the sun shine on my face, feeling that warmth.

I look up and see myself getting closer to the top as time passes, but mostly, the peak holds no meaning for me. Sometimes a memory tickles buttons in my mind, but the sun has permeated even there, and its rays push those memories into corners unreachable for now.

The smile on my face keeps spreading.

I still shake my booty and kick out my feet as I step up, up, up the ladder.

By the time it’s bleak and cold outside, I reach the top. There’s nowhere left to go.

But down.

I look down at the sleek, cold, metal of the slide and I shiver.

My smile starts to fade. I’m cold. The corners of my mind come alive with recognition of what’s happening.

As the wind blows through me, rattling my bones, I look around and can no longer find the light of the sun.

My teeth chatter.

Before long, a sudden gust of wind slaps a strong, icy hand into the small of my back and gives a malicious PUSH, and with a gasp, I tumble into the metal.

There are no sides to hold. There is no amount of scrambling that can stop my descent.

As if it matters… for as soon as my flesh makes contact with that metal, the cold seems to leach out of my very soul all desire to fight the obvious.

As my face falls slack, I quickly begin the long slide down for The Winter.

Haiku Sick Sucks

I know that kids must
suffer colds, flus, and other
ailments – it’s normal.

But I can’t stand to
see my little Bean so ill…
snotty, whiny, sad.

He coughs, gags, sniffles…
sneezes make his eyes water.
He’s tired, frustrated.

He comes to us and
all he wants is to be held;
cuddles up closely.

His eyes speak to me,
“Mommy, make it stop hurting.”
My heart is breaking.