Snuh?

It's official--Worcester's seasonal snowfall has crept above the one-inch barrier that had schoolchildren the city over wondering if they would have a snow day this winter. But wait, kids--don't dust off that toboggan just yet, the total snowfall for this winter is still at a measly two and a half inches. That's right, while last year at this time there was almost three feet of that white stuff, today, a gloomy, late-January day can't even bring enough snow to cover the grass of the beautifully kept lawns at Clark University.

Where is all the snow? Even on an "average" year (my meteorologist advises me not to use the word "normal") the snow accumulation for the season to date would be close to two and a half feet--not two and a half inches. I admit that I have lost a little sleep over it, being just a big kid at heart and longing to play in the snow with my children. And Christmas just wasn't the same without the blanket of white covering the apartments at out Mountain Village home. But it wasn't until just yesterday that I fully started to realize the scope of the situation and the true cause behind the unusually warm winter weather that we have experienced here in New England. Ah, your neck and shoulders just tensed up--you're bracing yourself for more of that inane drivel about El Niño or the jet stream or global warming. (Al Gore wanted me to put that last one in--he's sponsoring today's posting.) Relax! Don't worry! It's not nearly that bad...

Because it's really a conspiracy!

Yeah, there's no scientific explanation for the wacky winter weather. "They" are altering the weather to subvert your confidence in the weathermen on those decidedly liberal-backed news channels. You know, "them." In the latest move of bipartisan one-upmanship, the Republicans have changed the weather patterns over the majority of the United States in order to get potential Democratic defectors to distrust the left-leaning media that has slammed their party for the last, hmm, forever. Once again, "politics" in Washington has reared its defiant head and is wreaking havoc on the vacation plans of Americans throughout the nation.

Work with me here. It makes sense--really! It all started to click yesterday when I was talking with some friends. One of them, Greg, held firmly to the belief that National Football League games are fixed--even choreographed. It's all just a show, and no one is "on to it." Hmm. That got me thinking of what another friend of mine--also a Greg, oddly enough--had said about NAFTA and all the evil designs that it is planning to bring to fruition. What's more unbelievable is that these schemes are carried out by NAFTA in league with officials high up in the United States government and unbeknownst to Americans en masse.

Where is this going, you ask? You are still wondering how this all ties in to the lack of snow here in New England. Bear with me, this took me some effort to work my brain around the facts, so I know how you feel. Apparently, and this applies to more than just my two Gregs, in order to form a valid theory, all you have to do is throw out an explanation that could be possible, regardless of how improbable that theory may be. Hence, the Patriots and Colts are not of the same athletic caliber, so the games leading to that match up must have been rigged to favor a subsequent playoff between those two teams. If those games were rigged, deceit on the field must be rampant through the entire league. NAFTA has the potential to precipitate some environmental and labor problems in the United States, ergo it must be an evil scheme, will only benefit a privileged few, and most of the activities done in the name of free trade are done out of view of the general public for fear of reprisal.

Following this same kind of "logic," it's only natural that, to explain the warmer New England temperatures thus far, one has only to come up with a "theory" that is feasible, but not necessarily based on fact. And now it's just a short leap of logic to my "theory" about the previously unexplained warm weather trend. Just another thing to blame on Bush and his troop of red-staters. Thanks to the current administration and the GOP, my children have had practically no playing in snow up to this point.

Practically...

Here is a picture of Trevor playing in what little snow we had the other day. "I digging to do! I digging to do!" He got pretty excited.



And, to follow up on a previous post, Natalie did pretty well in her first basketball game. This is a picture of her tracking the ball. Look at how she is practically dwarfed by Michaela.