I mentioned in my last post that Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly was kind enough to nominate me for two things.  This second bit is a challenge.  I’m gonna have to break it into chunks, because once I get ranting, it’s like planting zucchini – once it sprouts, it NEVER STOPS COMING.

DA RULES:

1. List 10 things you LOVE
2. List 10 things you HATE
3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

OK, nice and simple.  Except…ten is a lot.  Like lots of a lot.  And I don’t want to just regurgitate stuff I already wrote about.  That feels…kinda lazy, and sort of missing the point of the challenge, no?

Plus, “hate” is a pretty strong word.  Do I really HATE hate ten actual things?  Maybe we can agree to use “hate” here like we do in the common vernacular, versus its actual, too-dark-for-my-blog meaning.  Kind of like my kids do with “literally.”  (No, you will not literally starve to death if we don’t eat now, and you will not literally die if we do not buy this dress.)  So here, “hate” literally means “strongly dislike.  Mkay?

This may take awhile….

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order):

1.  I hate to be cold…and I love being warm.

I despise being cold.  In addition to getting cold easily, and needing more layers than most folks, I have this lovely condition called Raynaud’s Syndrome that turns my fingers into Frosty Pops when it’s cold outside:

And by “cold,” I mean anything under 40 degrees.  Which, in the Midwest, is fall/spring weather.  For winter, 20 is a warm day, and I would cry except the tears would freeze and glacier-slice my nose off.  Which might scare small children.

“So why did you move to Minnesota?”  BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT.    (Well, technically, it was for a job, but I got the job because of a boy…but that’s a story – which, incidentally, still ends with “because I’m an idiot” – for another day.)

The good news is that it’s July and it’s WARM outside. It’s been close to 90, and I’m sitting outside as we speak just to soak it all in.  I cannot get enough of the WARM!

Unfortunately, the hubs (along with most normal humans, come to think of it) doesn’t like it much warmer than, say, 78.  That’s the tipping point for me where, if the sun’s out, I MIGHT be able to leave the sweater at home…as long as we’re not going anywhere, like out to eat, or shopping.  In that case, I’ll need to bring the sweater – or a parka – along for when we go back inside.

Which brings me to….

2.  I love my space heater, and I hate air conditioning.

So the building I work in used to be a window factory.  They eventually went out of business.  Why?  Well, in short, their windows totally blew goats.  In the summer, when the sun is shining, my office very quickly gets up to 84 degrees.  (Which is 100% hunky dory in my book – this is the first place I’ve EVER worked where I could actually wear seasonally-appropriate short sleeves in the office and not be looking to supplement my body heat with an auxiliary bonfire built from junk mail and personnel files.)

But in January?  I GET ACTUAL FROST ON MY WALLS. SOOOO NOT OK BRO.

So since I’m a unique, delicate orchid, I got special permission from HR* to have a space heater.  I crank that sucker ALL.THE.TIME and year-round.  (Yes, even in summer – my office will get up to 90 and BONUS!  Nobody stays more than five minutes!)  HEAT HEAT HEAT!  Aaaahhhhh.

*Yes.  This is the department I run.  I did ask myself very nicely, though.   And, after much deliberation, my request was approved.  Our HR team ROCKS!

Back to the sweater in my purse.  I live in the Midwest, where the temperature is below freezing pretty much from October through April, and for two of the three last winters, we’ve had snow in May.  Yes, you read that right.  Snow.  In.  May.  IN MAY PEOPLE!

So why, for the love of all things good, pure, and holy, must you attempt to replicate our annual deep-freeze INDOORS in the summer?  Do you not recognize the sheer insanity of recreating the Arctic Circle INDOORS WHEN YOU GET IT FOR FREE SIX MONTHS A YEAR?  Al Gore is TOTALLY going to smack you upside the head with a sustainable hunk of bamboo.

Sigh.

So I keep a sweater in my purse, just in case there’s an emergency and I have to go to the drugstore to pick up medication, or get groceries, or need new shoes.  It’s all about survival, peeps.

3.  I love sunshine, and I HATE SNOW. 

This is probably obvious, and somewhat redundant, given the first two.

No surprise on the sun here.  Sun = Warm.  But beyond that, I’m a big believer in the whole seasonal affective disorder thing, too.  You know how it is in the winter….

You wake up, and it’s dark. You drive to work…in the dark.  You drive home AFTER work…in the dark.  Day in, day out, for months on end.  By Valentine’s Day, we’re all a bunch of grumpy, pale vampires, just looking for an excuse to sever a random artery.  (I think this is why we began the tradition of passing out cards and chocolates in the shape of a heart.  So we don’t all kill each other.  Even though we want to kill SOMEBODY.)

So let’s talk snow.  I used to LOVE snow.  Snow was beautiful.  Snow was EXCITING!  When snow was a-comin, the energy was palpable.  People would be abuzz with wondering how much we’d get and what would be closed, and then when the snow DID come, we’d all stay inside all day and just watch it fall.

Aaaaahhhh.

So when I had a chance to take a job outside of Erie, PA, I jumped at the chance.  Erie gets TONS of snow!  And I LOVE snow!  SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!!

What I didn’t know at the time was that snow in Erie (a.k.a. “The Snow Belt”) is NOT like snow everywhere else.

You see, when it snows in Erie?  Nothing special happens.  Nothing’s closed, nothing’s rescheduled, nothing’s delayed.  If you venture to the grocery store, you will still be able to find bread, milk, toilet paper, and all of the ingredients to make chili.

In other words, it’s just another day.  Just another day….with snow on top.

And let me tell you what a day in Erie is like:

Get up early, because the weather is probably terrible.  Dig out car from 4-6″ of snow.  Drive to work while another inch of snow falls.  After working a few hours, tackle nature’s slip-n-slide to get some lunch.  Brush two more inches of snow off your car.  At day’s end, scrape your windshield and dig out from 3″ of newly fallen snow. Drive home in a whiteout.  REPEAT EVERY F#@$#NG DAY BETWEEN OCTOBER AND APRIL.

I wish I were joking.  I moved there in mid-November, and by Thanksgiving we had THREE FEET of snow.  THREE.  FEET.  And it just does NOT stop.  And if you’ve absolutely HAD IT and just canNOT go on another day, you can’t even freaking hurl yourself off your roof to end it all, because you just land in a snow pile.  You’re not dead; the closest thing ya got is making a snow angel.

I lived outside of Erie for three long, cold, brutal, hellacious winters.  And eventually, I moved to…Minnesota.  Yeah, it’s stupid cold here – but you don’t have to shovel cold.  (The tradeoff is that the ground is frozen solid, so there’s nowhere to bury bodies….)

Spring always comes.  Eventually.  No matter what that stupid groundhog says.  Right, Punxsutawney Phil?  RIGHT? <cocks gun menacingly and shows him THIS>

---

So – that’s three.  Seven love/hates to go.  I’m gonna nominate my soulmate fattymccupcakes because she’s hilarious, and because I bet she has some ideas for this that I can steal be inspired by.  MWAH 😉