“I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.”
The sun came back again today and has that sharpness I always associate with a cold winter’s day. The breeze is blowing the dead leaves still hanging on the ends of the oak branches. I noticed buds on a few of the bushes in my front garden. I wish I could warn them not to be seduced by this winter’s weather.
Today I’m tired. I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep but luckily woke up in time to meet my friend for Sunday breakfast. Our place was unusually crowded, and a line waited outside for booths. It was more like a summer morning than one in winter.
The worst part of winter is having cold hands or feet even in a warm house. When my feet are cold, my whole body is cold. Yesterday was one of those days even though I was already wearing socks and slippers, but they just weren’t doing their jobs so I went hunting for my favorite old wool socks, the ones with moth holes on the bottoms. I finally found them, put them on and then put my slipper socks over them. I stuffed my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and finally I felt warm.
Summer means so many things to me. Summer is lazy days reading on the deck under the umbrella. Warm summer nights are for playing games and eating dinner outside with friends. I can remember the taste of the first of summer’s barbecued Tony burgers, named after my friend who concocted them. On Saturdays, summer is movie night on the deck with Raisinettes and popcorn. Most of all, though, summer is baseball.
Today the pitchers and the catchers report. Soon enough we’ll be hearing the cracks of the bats and the shouts of the crowd. I can hardly wait for opening day.
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Tags: barbecue burgers, Baseball, cold, keeping warm, summers, warm nights, wool socks
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February 19, 2012 at 1:08 pm
It was over 32F all day and sometimes it snowed and in the end the sun shone. Now the night sky is clear so it will be rather cold I’m afraid. But the fire is burning in the stove and my cottage is so warm I don’t have any sock on 🙂
I think it is worse to have cold hands, that chills my whole body. Cold feet doesn’t seem to send the cold to the rest of my body. But nothing hurst so bad like having cold feet and hit the toes in to something. That pain stays for hours 🙂 🙂
Summer means much the same to me but it also means bites from horse flies and mosquitos 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
February 19, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Christer,
We have had only about 6 or 7 inches of snow this whole winter. It is the strangest one I can remember.
My hands are easier to get warm. My feet take forever, and the worst is going to bed with them cold: they never get warm.
No horse flies here but we have plenty of mosquitos.
February 19, 2012 at 2:33 pm
The warm winter continues here in North Texas where the weather can change in a heartbeat. Yesterday we had a cold steady rain and today the sun is out and the air is warming up.
Although the Mavs are the NBA champions, I still think of basketball as that sports diversion between the football and baseball season. I don’t give much thought to Hockey since the Stars have been also rans since they won the Stanley Cup once in 1999. How thrilled can you get about Hockey when the temperature is in the seventies.
The Rangers now make their spring training home in Surprise Arizona instead of in Pompano Beach Florida. All of my previous favorite teams have always trained in the grapefruit league. The Mets train in Port St. Lucie, the Cards train in Jupiter, the Red Sox train in Sarasota and the hated Yankees train in Tampa. The Dodgers trained for a many years in Vero Beach, which was known as Dodger Town, but they now train in Glendale Arizona. The Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays train in Florida which seems weird to me. If anything they should train in Arizona. The Arizona Diamondbacks train in Scottsdale which is a suburb of Phoenix. I think they should train in Florida. Spring training is the time when a ballplayer is supposed to be away from his family and put all of his physical and mental effort into preparing for the season. I don’t know how you do that while training in a suburb of the town where you live.
Baseball is the one great sport where nothing major has changed in over a hundred years. The bases are 90 feet apart, the pitcher’s rubber is 66 feet six inches from home plate and it’s still three strikes and your out. The only thing that is new, and in my opinion a mistake, is the designated hitter rule in the American League. It’s an abomination to the strategy of the game perpetrated by the former Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley to attract more fans in his small market. Thank god the other American League owners didn’t go along with some of Charlie O’s other ideas like yellow baseballs. I hope professional baseball doesn’t allow aluminum bats. How can you get excited about a home run that comes off the ping of the bat?
I can’t wait for opening day when every team has a chance at winning the World Series in October.
February 19, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Bob,
I know the Red Sox used to go to Arizona years ago but ay some point they moved to Florida.This year they opened a brand new park which resembles Fenway.
I went to a college where hockey is huge, and I never missed a home game, but I never developed a love for hockey. I think I’ve seen maybe one pro game in my lifetime. I do like basketball but baseball is my all time favorite game to watch.
We have what some consider the premier college baseball league: the Cape Cod League. Many current and past major leaguers have played here in the summer. The players come from schools which all use aluminum bats but the Cape League uses wooden bats. Needless to say there aren’t many hits at the beginning of the season. It takes the players a while to get used to the wooden bats.
I’m with you in not liking the aluminum bats!