Vulnerability

As if waking up in a hotel room, alone, and in a distant unfamiliar suburb after a tremendous wedding celebration wasn't enough to make me uncomfortable, nauseated, and vulnerable, Mother Nature decided to play her hand, further impacting my climate-based sentimental state. What was at first a lovely early spring day turned quickly into the backdrop for a battle scene on a coastal Japanese mountain range in a WWII movie I haven't seen but whose existence I will assume.

The sun gave way to militant clouds which unleashed biblical winds, hail, rain, snow, sleet, what some meteorologist like calling "a wintery mix". When I hear, wintery mix, I think hot chocolate with schnapps, warm apple cider with brandy and cloves. The wintery mix of yesterday, heralding the coming of a miserable April, froze my insides and left me feeling unbelievably vulnerable to the forces of nature and organ theives. I was even scared in my dreams, but this was probably because of watching Law and Order SVU too late in the night.

Looking at the forecast, I'm used to seeing an image of the sun, maybe it has a couple of clouds blocking its path, maybe its just one big cloud, maybe there are rain drops coming from the cloud. Yesterday, though, weathermakers chose the above image to serve as a quick snapshot of what to expect. How the hell do I prepare for a day in which ice is going to grow on the undersides of branches? Do I wear a scarf? Do I need boots? Skates? A hard hat?

As an environmentalist, and a lover of pleasant weather, I feel as though I should begin the somewhat untruthful hype. Yesterday was because of climate change, and if we keep on going down our deleterious path of atmospheric destruction, everyday will be a wintery mix. Everyday will have ice hanging from branches. Global Warming is dead, the new plan is to avoid Global Wintery Mixing.