Spring? Is it Spring?

Jan note: This is a rerun from April, 2001, when we were living in Valdez

From what I hear from my friends, I think the weather in Valdez is as fanciful as that in Fairbanks. Is it winter? Is it spring? Does Mother Nature know? One day is warm enough for a sweater, the next day you’re dragging out a parka. One day you stand still in the middle of the sidewalk and let the blessed warmth of the sun flow over your face, the next day you’re huddled under a scarf trying to keep out the frigid wind from the north.

This is the time of year when you can start out wearing bunny boots and end up going barefoot; when you can start out wearing capris and end up buying a pair of cheap sweatpants at K-Mart so you don’t freeze your tush. It’s when you can go into the store when it’s genuine spring and come out an hour later to genuine blizzard. It’s using the windshield washers one day and shoving off snow with the scraper the next.

As is the tradition with us, we’re now parking one rig at the end of the driveway since only the 4-wheel-drive pickup will make it through the sea-deep wallows and slushy holes in our long driveway. I don’t catch a ride with Troy to the end of the driveway I slog through the mush in my boots and pray I don’t run headlong into the cow and calf moose that call our land their land. The sapling birches are surely too scrawny to climb and the boots to clumsy to run. If it happens that I run into them I only hope it’s in the morning when I’m grouchy enough to not want to put up with much guff.

It is nice to note that I made it through another winter with my sanity intact. Actually, this one was a breeze, quite unlike others which make you question whether you have the brains God gave you and, if so, why on earth you stay in a place that crawls down to 60 below. The only good side of the sanity factor is that it’s a comfort knowing if you do go over the deep end the government will take care of you.

And it could be worse. I read about a group of people wintering in the South Pole in the 1960s who were so bored that they watched the film “Cat Ballou” 87 times. People in another group, after tiring of the westerns, Disney features and porno films on hand, spliced them altogether into their own production and adopted a vocabulary based on their creation. The new language was so bizarre that relief crews arriving in the spring could barely understand them.

Anyway, we’re having some mighty iffy weather and I’ve outlined the differences below:

You think it’s going to be spring so you buy a summer wardrobe. You find out it’s not spring when three months later the tags are still on the clothes.

You think it’s going to be spring so you go on a weight-loss program fit for a bikini. You find out it’s not spring when you lose all the weight, look great for two weeks and then gain it all back. And it’s still not spring.

You think it’s going to be spring so you get out your favorite lawn chair. You find out it isn’t spring when snow turns it into another unidentifiable lump in the yard.

You think it’s going to be spring so you plant 30 flats of petunias. You find out it isn’t spring when they reach a height of 18 inches and have only a few leaves left.

You think it’s going to be spring when you wash your car one lovely April day. You find out it isn’t spring the next morning when you discover the wheels frozen solid in ice puddles and all the doors frozen shut.

You think it’s going to be spring so you clean like a crazy person. You discover it isn’t spring when the house slowly turns back into it’s normal mess and there’s still no sign of spring on the horizon.

You think it’s going to be spring so you pay $30 for a new short hairdo. You find out it isn’t spring when you pay $150 to the clinic to treat frostbite of the ears.

And finally, you think it’s spring so you whoop and holler and grin. When you find out it isn’t spring you sit down and shed a few tears.