Winter Wonderland - my ass!

"The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost..."

She was, of course, referring to the shit hitting the fan in Middle Earth, but Galadriel (Cate Blanchett to the lesser among you) could so easily have been expressing my precise views on the much-dreaded onset of winter.

Having spent my entire life in Bombay, India I suddenly found myself staring at two winters in the North Eastern states of America. This was back when I first got to the US in early March 2003. I'd been told that winter was on its way out and we could look forward to some good spring weather "soon". And so I touched down in Hartford, Connecticut armed with nothing but a windcheater-type non-jacket and a cheery smile. 15 minutes on US soil and the latter had turned into a worried frown. I had a few images set in my head of what things would be like; one such image was a perfectly white wintry landscape.. dotted with children making a snowman.. a one-horse open sleigh in the background perhaps (REMEMBER: mental images do not have to be real). Getting out of the airport, though, I saw the nastiest looking banks of piled up, 1-week-old greyblack snow you could ever imagine! Whoever thought up the phrase 'snow white' had obviously never taken a drive up Interstate 91N. You must agree it wasn't the most perfect welcome ever. Still, the excitement of being in the US of A carried me through the first week (Yes, I was the 25 yr-old, inadequately dressed FOB running around trying to catch the first snowflake in the supermarket parking lot. WITH MY TONGUE!!!) . Maybe even a couple of days into the next. But after that.. it all went downhill faster than you could say 'frozen nipple'.

There really isn't much to do during these months. Not for me, at least. I tried skiing once; it was not a success (think Beetle Bailey after having pissed off a dozen Sarges!). My ineptitude on the slopes is trumped only by my performance on the skating rink, where blades, ice and railing all seem to object to my presence while 6 year-olds carve intricate patterns around me at 20 miles an hour. If one felt up to challenging the treacherously icy roads, one would have to clean out my car (an interesting process which starts with me elegantly chipping away at the windshield, then hacking at it the wrong end of the ice-scraper and finally, clawing frantically with my hands with all dignity thrown to the winds!!!) and since such effort is rarely worth it, most often one chooses to stay in and become a classic victim of cabin fever.

And so the month of October brings with it crispy winds and sweaters. It's really not bad right now.. just like there's nothing bad about Sunday evening, except that you know it's gonna be followed by Monday. The firangs at work think I'm being a baby. But what to do.. my brown (wheatish?) ass is not built for this sorta weather!!! I'd shout that off the rooftop if I could do it without freezing precious parts of my anatomy. I can't, ergo.. I blog.

I'll wrap this one up with some of my favourite winter phrases. I know I'll be using them too, cause you can bet your ass - it will get colder than a witch's teat, the roads will get slicker than cat shit and Chris Rock will still be funnier than a fart in a lung machine. OK, so that last one had nothing to do with winter. But I like it.