Baby It's Cold Outside.

To quote a song, "Baby it's cold outside" and that goes for a good part of the US. For places like South Florida.. your turn is coming this coming week. Winter is back in style again after being a no show for several years. Kind of like hurricanes if you think on it... It's like someone threw a switch and turned the weather back on and it's coming back with a vengeance this winter. 2018 will usher in a new Arctic Blast much like the last one of the year which has brought record temperatures and threatened New Year's Eve celebrations.

I was debating on whether I should watch TWC this morning. The morning news is now on hiatus as I can not take morning diabtribes and editorials before I have finished my first coffee and finished putting on my make up. TWC is not delivering me snow today, nor is Mother Nature, so I could just keep it off in protest .... however... I watched today. I'm glad I did as I got to enjoy a segment on the 1967 Ice Bowl that was played in frigid temperature and oh by the away the Green Bay Packers won!

That game is always connected to my father and my early love of football. I was home sick (something typical back then) and my family had to go out for the day. Back in those days they left little kids home alone and trusted they would call someone if they needed help. What a concept... Some of my best days were when I was left "home alone" and I'll explain why. I had two little baby brothers at that age, an over protective mother who seemed to enjoy arguing with my father about everything. Being stuck in the car while my brothers fought (I sat in the middle to keep them apart as directed) and every road trip to Grandma's ended in someone being annoyed. Home alone was my "happy world" but I did love going to Grandmas. My father set me up with a radio and the TV and told me I should watch the "football game" that it would be a great game. Obviously... he would like to have stayed home and watched the game too but he was a good guy and so he went with the family and I stayed home. And, in doing so I fell more deeply in love with football and developed a life long devotion to the Green Bay Packers. Looking back I suppose that game was the reason I never liked "America's team" the Cowboys as they were the "other team" and obviously from early on I was a Packer fan even though I lived way down in Florida.

I'm not alone....

I've loved football always. My father taught me to watch local games with the sound off and listening to the radio that for some reason back then did not have a tape delay. That way you learned all the nuances of the plays and the game vs listening to diabtribes by obviously bored on air "announcers" which is consistent with my love of news and politics yet my dislike for CNN, FOX and MSNBC.  Just give me the news and tell me the plays.

One of the better things about being in Miami last month when I was in Cable News Rehab is that on Roku (I hope I spelled that right it's too early in the morning to Google everything) is that I just got this one stupid CBS News that was on a loop with one "reporter" who basically went to the story. Oh my gosh there was no rolling eyes or stupid laughing or bitter discussion at 7 AM ... just the news. There was also no TWC :( but as there was no snow in Miami coming and no hurricanes I made it through adapting and watching my Twitter Feed.

I'm due to go back in a few weeks to see my new granddaughter Olivia and to play with my new grandson Harel and spend some quality time with the "Miami Kids" and my best friends. Maybe I'll get that research done down at the Main Library or maybe not. I'll be back in March... it's been that kind of year. I really want to squeeze in a fast trip to New York somehow before finding time to go to Seattle for a long trip. I've become a professional traveler it seems these days. But today I'm home, in bed, with TWC on low and trying to plan out my day.

Why am I going long on my personal life? It's the end of the year and a time for reflection. Especially so when your birthday is December 30th and you are more prone to look back, smile and remember. I mean you can't go to the local grocery store without seeing "the year in review" so I am taking a few  moments this Friday morning to look back before braving the cold to go out and about shopping for Shabbos. I'm making lamb in the slow cooker today while I'm out and about doing other things.

My mother was over protective about everything. A "Jewish Southern Mother" has more neurosis than a good Tennessee Williams play or a Philip Roth novel. I over compensated at an early age by trying to make up for it but treating my baby brothers to things she would not let them do. One Halloween before we were extremely Orthodox and she stopped doing Halloween she refused to let my brothers go trick or treating because it was "too cold outside" and obviously if they played football Up North in snow I was pretty sure that it was okay to go Trick or Treating when it was in the upper 60s from an early cold front. So she agreed to let me pretend to be someone by a door and they dressed up and they kept coming to my bedroom door (or some door) while I pretended to be different old people giving them Halloween candy. On a few occasions I snuck out with my older baby brother and lucky for me they did not have 911 then as my mother most likely would have called 911 for a possible kidnapping. Anything North of WPB was either "up the road" or "Up North" and a danger zone from late September to May. I'm not exaggerating.

As I was sick often I was not allowed out if it was cold, wet, windy, too hot, humid .... I started sneaking out at an early age to go "storm chasing" and so it goes.

My grandchildren, yes I have a few, are allowed to touch the passing puppy dogs, play in the snow and do more things than my brothers were ever allowed to do until they escaped my mother's over protective grasp. Good for them... my grandchildren ... nothing like playing in the snow. I know because I went to Maine to visit my best friend who lived there for a few years in the middle of winter and sledded down a hill and played on swings in a snowy park and then walked on a Wells Beach with snow going down to the water's edge.

When it snows.... 

.... enjoy it!

When the sun shines...

...enjoy it!

When it rains late at night...

... enjoy the sounds of the rain.

Enjoy it!

Aside from staying home watching football often I got to watch really old movies on Channel 6 in Miami. Channel 6 was the new "other" channel (not ABC NBC or CBS... yes there were only 3 of them then) and they didn't have much programming so they'd play the same movies over and over the way TWC explains about icing on bridges and how not to throw the cup of boiling water into the air to make snow because it's dangerous but here's a clip of someone doing it. Long run on sentence but I'm in a rush so not grammar here today!

If you are going out for New Year's Eve bundle up, keep snacks and water in the car with you in case the car breaks down and use the water before it freezes ;) Seriously, enjoy the weather and may this be the biggest thing we have to worry about on New Year's Eve.  If you prefer staying home.... enjoy the evening ... watch a good movie, something on Youtube or share it with a good friend or someone you love. 

Going shopping. Takes a while to figure out what to wear here when it's this cold. It currently has warmed up to 23 degrees going up to 41 (toasty warm) and down to 15 degrees tonight. No snow. Since I've been robbed of real winter weather this blog is about life and weather and well as I said back when I started this blog it's my blog so I can talk about what I want ;)

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

The original from the movie. I don't remember the movie but when I was really little the women did look like that in the movies. Seems a lot of minks gave their lives up for Hollywood Films ;)

And no I am not proofing this I found more errors in the New York Times recently in online articles I wonder does the media ever proof anything anymore? 

This was not a diatribe just musing which is what I do and hoping to make my brother smile.