Sweet seasons

(I always do a Carole King shoutout when I can...she wrote a song with that title)

But before I do, first, a tip to save money that I just discovered:

A week ago, I emailed the Amy's Food company. They make pretty awesome products, especially for people like me who are on a joy-free diet. One thing they make is this really good mac cheese that's both gluten free and dairy free. Problem is, it looks a lot like their other mac/cheese meals which DO contain either gluten or dairy. I brought one with real cheese, heated it up, took a bite and thought, "Hey, this is really good. It CAN'T be something I normally buy." Sure enough, I looked at the package and saw that it had "cheese", not "cheeze". (I am not kidding about this)
Anyway, I had to toss it out. I emailed the company, who responded very courteously to say they had received similar complaints and were updating their packaging. I thought, "Cool...glad they're doing it". And that was the end, until today, when I received about 20 dollars worth of coupons from them in the mail.
Moral: If you don't like what a company is doing (or better, if you DO like something they're doing), all you have to do in contact them. Even today, companies generally like to hear from consumers with constructive feedback. It makes them better and it saves you money. How cool is that?

Now, to the main event. My love of 4 seasons. (Not the band, although I must say I DID like them and lamely tried to imitate Frankie Valli's falsetto).
But I digress...
No, I'm talking meteorologically. I spent about 10 years in sun belt climates. Columbia, SC. Los Angeles, Nashville, TN. (the latter being a marginal sun belt city that gets 2 ice storms a season). And I hated, hated, missing winter and even more, the autumn.
When asked why I like living in CT, my #1 answer is "the first part of October." Case closed. Our state, and Litchfield County in particular, is the prettiest place on earth in early fall.
But beyond that, almost as beautiful is a new fallen snow. Of which we've had 4 events so far. None major. However, as beautiful as it is, driving in it is another story. Now, keep my background in mind. I have a masters degree in geography and I specialized in climatology and even taught it in grad school. I also have 9 credits in meteorology. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a weather freak of the first order.
Therefore, it is, even now, inexplicable to me how I could be driving in each of the 4 storms. Let's take this chronologically.
1: First week of November, a week after Sandy hit (itself unprecedented). Where am I? I'm at the laundromat. The $%^&ing laundromat? Yeah, I was out of clean clothing. But I KNEW the forecast. So when they pulled my body from the wreckage, they could say, "Well, at least he had clean clothing."
2: My girlfriend, who still wishes for me to hide her identity, and I are out at a Christmas Eve mass. (She's a former Christian who wanted to revisit her faith). Beautiful music.  Boring prose. Amazingly
irrelevant sermon. Anyway, it starts snowing during mass. I need to drive her back. The snow has stopped, with very little accumulation. For you snow novices, that's a worst case scenario. A little snow makes the highways very, very slick. Again, we survived. This time, when our frozen corpses are found, they could say, "well, at least they didn't die alone."
3: Just a few days ago, I drive to anonymous girlfriend's house. And I leave in the heart of a storm that, when done, will only leave maybe 4-5 inches accumulation. Not a big deal. But, as the band 10cc said back in the 70's, "The Things we do for Love". All I had to do was wait a couple of hours. Or spend the night at my place. Or any number of other non-suicidal options. But no, off I went, on a drive that lasted over an hour, that's normally 20 minutes. I'm still not sure how I was able to go an hour without taking a breath. But somehow I did. This time, when my corpse is found, they could say, "He was a devoted boyfriend."
4: Finally, just 2 days ago, I visited my friend, Donna. I could have cancelled but this was already a reschedule. Nothing was going to stop me. When I left, it actually was not snowing. It started halfway there. By the time, I left from Donna's, it was snowing...and hard. (By the way, how come there's no verb to describe this condition? If it's rain, it's pouring, a downpour, etc. But when it's snow, there's no equivalent.) But I DO give myself credit for taking the longer, but flatter, route home. My normal route, which would have taken me down a steep hill on Rt. 15, an expressway, would have been suicidal. After I lost control of my car and careened into oncoming traffic, they could have said, "Well...he survived his last 3 suicidal encounters with clean clothing, a girlfriend, and devotion. But not this time. What an idiot."

All that wasted education. I promise to not do anything suicidal ever again. Unless anonymous girlfriend says otherwise.

A wonderful and blessed 2013 to everyone. Thanks again for visiting, y'all.