Monday Musings...
OK, so it's NOT July in Indiana...but it sure FEELS like it, doesn't it?
Never fear, though. We're supposed to return to more "seasonal" weather by tomorrow.
But I guess it COULD be worse.
We COULD have gotten TEN INCHES OF SNOW, like people did last week in Wisconsin.
Still, it's weather like this that reminds me that I'm no longer a spring chicken, when it comes to temperature tolerances.
When we were all young, we thought NOTHING about how COLD it was...or how HOT it was.
We'd go outside in below freezing weather, play for a few HOURS, then come back covered in snow, to which Mom would chide us for our folly.
During the Summer, we'd spend hours in the blazing sun, getting charred several ways to Tuesday and looking like some dinner special at RED LOBSTER!
And we didn't mind one damn bit.
Today, it's a whole other story.
We tend to only go outside in the winter when it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, like to shovel the walk, or run up the car in the garage. We're quite content to remain in our "caves", safe and WARM, all wrapped in our "Snuggies", sipping some hot chocolate, and hibernating until Springtime, like some bear in the woods.
It's not as bad in the Summertime, though...
We might actively seek out the nearest store/mall/restaurant with A/C, when we dash from our AIR-CONDITIONED VEHICLES, which we drove from our AIR-CONDITIONED HOUSES. Yessiree...nothing says comfort better than a nice 72 degree house/car/store/theater with a relative humidity of about 35% on a day where the temps are up tickling the CENTURY MARK, right?
BUT...there are those times we (as men, anyway) have to exercise our prerogative to devolve into primitive man for a brief time, and fire up the GRILL for a cookout!
THEN, and ONLY then, can we suffer the heat, the humidity, and the bugs, ALL for the sake of those "properly prepared" bits of charred animal flesh.
Nothing comes even close.
Like I said, my tolerance for extreme temperatures is too often tested these days.
I usually like to get out and mow the lawn EARLY, and that would mean ASAP after day's break.
I see others who are out in the heat of the day, and that's simply not right. That's like taking someone with COPD and forcing them to shovel the sidewalk when it's near zero outside in January!
Now I have spent time in environments that were "less than ideal" on MANY occasions, and that's everything from factories to other cities, to being in a foreign land, and I did it all without nearly batting a eye. You just suck it up and work through it.
Then again, we were all "indestructible" once, were we not?
These days, I'm content to PACE MYSELF, although I do stray from the path from time to time.
I'm happy with getting things done when ALLOWABLE, and not dictated by a calendar or clock.
I look at it as nature's way of saying "SLOW THE F*CK DOWN, BOB".
I will always finish what I begin, though...that's a given.
Dad always told me that "If you don't plan to finish something,. don't even try to start it"...and he was right there (again)..
Ahh...the wisdom gleaned from parents. You could write volumes on that.
I mean it's not like wisdom is to be avoided like the SWINE FLU, right?
(uh, oh...I smell a segue coming)
-- Yep, we've got a SWINE FLU outbreak in six states, as well as British Columbia and Mexico (imagine that).
The WHO (not the Pete Townsend group...geez) and CDC have even mentioned the word PANDEMIC...and whenever I hear that, I'm figuring it's an honest-to-God REALLY BAD outbreak with global implications...OR... I'm just watching another episode of this season's *24* on FOX!
Makes me wonder how JACK BAUER would handle this?
He'd probably just take 'em all OUT...and we're not talking DINNER and a MOVIE!
I mean it's not as though one of those (millions of) ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS have ANYTHING to do with this...or did they?
Swine flu, indeed.
I'm still not giving up MY bacon!
Would it mean that SAFER BORDERS could have stemmed the tide of this or caught it SOONER?
Betcha those people in TEXAS are keeping THEIR "hoglegs" REAL close now.
Still, if you were of the conspiracy-theory persuasion, you could "believe" that this might be an "attack" on the USA. It's not beyond the realm of reason to think that someone could have a biological agent LIKE swine flu. There is no law or protocol that dictates that ANY & EVERY bio-weapon HAS to be anthrax...does it? Why not use something that doesn't so much kill off a lot of people, but rather renders them incapacitated for a time (so "things" can slip on past us while we're busy with this flu outbreak).
The direct attack is ALWAYS suspected, and consequently watched for, but it's the "covert" ops are the ones that get the job done.
While I wouldn't call this flu pandemic COVERT, I would say it came out of left field at us, so it wasn't really OVERT either.
I read about instances of flu outbreaks over in the UK late last year that were offing folks, and they were not ALL old people.
Hell, the (Spanish) flu outbreak back in 1918 killed about 50 MILLION people worldwide...and scientists have used the decoding of THAT flu strain to prepare us for subsequent outbreaks ever since.
So you can't just say that getting the sniffles does not have serious repercussions. We ARE looking at Summertime...and mosquitoes (the bringers of disease).
And anyone that has had a bad cold in the SUMMER knows what I'm talking about. Nothing is worse than running a FEVER when it's already in the 80s outside, with the humidity keeping pace nicely.
God forbid if you get dehydrated.
And back in my youth, having an A/C unit in ONE room of a house was a upper-middle class LUXURY, and NOT one's God-given righ or entitlement!
We had little somethings called OSCILLATING FANS...and that was about it, aside from ice cubes wrapped in wash cloths.
It's hard to sweat out that fever when you've been sweating for weeks, thanks to the summer heat. Get's hard to tell the difference.
But I think we'll get a handle on this outbreak soon enough.
We'd BETTER, anyway.
As for the seasonal changes?
Well, for me personally, I'll take SPRING and FALL...any day.
Spring is a time of rebirth, and the Fall colors are fantastic. Can't argue with either one.
The only problem is that neither season is ever LONG enough, but it could always be worse...
It could be a case where we only have TWO seasons (like in Indonesia):
1 - The DRY SEASON
2 - The RAINY SEASON
(with no break in between to adjust for either one)
Or we could be in Wisconsin..shovelling snow in April.
Damn global WARMING.
So, in the meantime, stay away from people who are coughing (I like to hold my breath, so I'll be the guy with the blue face in line behind you), tell people to cover their damn mouth, get a Kleenex to wipe the schnoz, and don't forget that it's perfectly OK to get a little "OCD" by washing one's hands frequently to avoid the flu.
But above all...
Stay safe out there, America.