80 Degrees, MIKA, 6 Days, and More! :-)

Yesterday’s high was 81 degrees.
In March.
In Minnesota.
What’s wrong here?
My goodness, so many things.
1. 81 is the normal temp for the first week in June.
2. We shattered the previous record for the day by 7 degrees.
3. The normal temps for this time of year are the 40s.
4. Three weeks ago we had 2 consecutive snowstorms, three days apart, dropping a foot of the white stuff each.
5. 81 degrees is just plain hot. Not nice, just miserable.
6. Global warming, anyone?
7. We had to turn on the AC for most of the day. It’s MARCH!
8. Sweat stains on the shirt due to backpack? Not attractive.
9. The heat is still on in some buildings.
10. Need I say more?
Was I the only one in the area who did not like the weather? Perhaps…
(Today was gorgeous to me, being in the 60s. I don’t need/want to see half naked people running around all over town.)

MIKA, “Grace Kelly” = my new obession.
I believe I made a playlist on my iPod with just this song on it so I could listen to it over and over again. I have never done that before. Wtf?

6 Days till the opener!

Tonight’s Flick: Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.
Baseball fever? Nah, what gave you that idea?

Flashback to 2000

Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple hours looking at houses to live in next year with my three future roommates. We saw three different places, two of which actually were habitable. As we were going into the third house I had a flashback of sorts to when we spent a day in Marinette looking at houses the fall before we moved there. It was boring, tiring, and I was getting hungry. The first house we toured is the most promising I am thinking. It is the upper half of a place on University, about 7 blocks or so from campus. It is right on the bus line which takes us straight down University, we would be able to move in before our leases for our current apartments are up, which will help avoid the two and a half weeks of homelessness, it has character (something our current residences lack), new appliances, the landlord is renovating the bathroom putting in new fixtures and tile, and it is complete with an attic to have seances and a coal room in the basement to make horror movies. I looove it! House number two…oh man, what an experience. It is actually right across the street from my apartment building right now, and I can see if from the front window. It is disgusting. Plus, the guy who was showing us around cut himself right before we arrived and his hand was bleeding a little the entire time. You’d think he would have noticed and cleaned it up a bit. To each his own I guess. The third house wasn’t bad. The only biff I had with it was the fact that I have no idea where it is located in relation to campus. It seems to be kind of far, and isn’t on a direct bus line really. Plus the stairs’ ceilings are low and all four of us are tall. We don’t fit in the house! I am actually going to be the shortest of the roomies. Strange for me because I have been the taller one as of late. We are still planning on looking at a few more houses, just to be sure. I think we all agree that the first house would be great. We just need some reassurance I think and make sure the guy finishes what he’s working on before we get into a lease.

Spring

I considering Spring to be my favorite season. Sure, all four are wonderful, but everyone has one in particular that they look forward to all year long. Lots of people, up north especially, say Summer is the best, because it is the warmest. True, but the precursor really is where things start. It is symbolic of a rebirth, a new beginning, a resurrection, if you will. No wonder Easter is in the Spring of each year. It is technically the third day of Spring, but today was the most beautiful day I have seen of 2007 so far. The high was 65 degrees, which is pretty much let’s wear shorts and go swimming weather after a long winter of cold temps.

There are many perks to the coming Spring.

-Two words: Opening Day. That’s right…baseball season is a mere NINE days away! We’ve been counting down since the day the Twins lost the series to the A’s last October, so this is a big deal. We will be in the ‘dome on April 2nd to watch the opening pitch and who knows, maybe to see the final run. This will surely be a season to remember for me…

-Two more words: Summer Vacation. There are only six weeks of class left, plus a week of finals. That means no homework for nearly FOUR months! That will allow me to catch up on the dozens of books I have intended to read a year ago.

-Pretty skirts and dresses.

-Warm weather.

-More hours=more cash flow.

-Road trips.

-Fireworks

-Daylight past 9 in the evening.

-Ice cream and sno-cones.

-County and State Fairs.

-Graduations.

-Rolling down the window to sing at the top of your lungs.

-Fun, cheap days spent outdoors.

And many, many more. Why would anyone even THINK to hate Spring?

Snow Days

Do you remember snow days? As a child growing up in Western Minnesota, I certainly had my share of them. I can say now, at age 20, the mere hint of a possible day off from school due to inclement weather gets me all warm and fuzzy inside. As I look out the window at the nearly 2 feet of snow that has accumulated since last Saturday, I am in awe. Clearly none of us Minnesotans saw this coming. We didn’t even have a white Christmas for goodness sake! I didn’t see my first significant snowfall of the season until the middle of January. I haven’t seen this much accumulation since we moved to Marinette. That means since December of 2000, our winters have been pretty mild. Very mild. No, too mild. In the winter of 1996-1997 we had 7 (yes, seven) FEET of snow in our front yard. Our snow forts kicked butt that year. They were pretty much amazing. A work of art even. (Of course, in the first week of April it all bit us in the butt when the 3 rivers in the town flooded nearly everything. Still memorable.) Bringing you all back to my original point…snow days. It seems as though every single school (elementary, high, and college) was closed today. Except for the one I attend. Apparently the U of M doesn’t believe in canceling school. Something to do with money…or whatever. Yesterday the snow was really heavy. Like a blizzard. I haven’t seen a “real” blizzard (up to my standards) since I left MN for WI. This one was a doozy. We got 11.5 inches in this one, and last weekend, about 8. The U did close the campus down at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. (I was finished with class already, but was working and decided that it would behoove me to leave early.) They haven’t done anything like that since the infamous Halloween Blizzard of’91. (BTW…that was a good year. The Twins won the World Series just days before, so my mother carved “Twins” in their exact script into a pumpkin. That, along with the inches upon inches of snow made for quite the trick or treating experience.) As my roommate and I watched the news, and saw the school closings roll by on the bottom of the screen, we hoped…we prayed…we wished with all our might that we would have the same pleasure in seeing, “University of Minnesota…closed” tick by. (sigh) We did not have that experience this morning. In fact, the website this morning had an announcement that said the U is in fact open and running on time. Hooray for that. So, I put on wind pants (there was no way I was putting on jeans on a day like today) and braved the light blowing snow and the heaps of the stuff filling the now non-existent sidewalks. It was quite an adventure walking to work this morning. I figured, as long as the college is open, I might as well hoof it to the office to get some work done and make some money. Then, I decided that as long as I was over there, I might as well go to my lecture. My last class of the day was canceled by the professor last night, so I was finished at noon. Sad note however…I made coffee this morning to bring along. And forgot it on the kitchen counter. This was a bit of a problem since I woke up earlier than usual and I have given up pop for lent and could not purchase a diet coke for a pick-me-up. I will note now that I have survived the entire day without caffeine. But soon I am going to meet up with some friends and we’ll see how long I last tonight. Until next time we get a beautiful blizzard, stay warm.