Thaw

A week ago I wrote about “the Arctic blast”, that shot of Arctic air that hit Canada and the northern US due to a wobbly polar vortex. For a few days the high temperatures in central Virginia were around freezing. Then it began to warm up. Yesterday’s high was 75°. The forecasters said it would be cooler today and, sure enough, today’s high is only 74°. Brrr, someone build a fire! A week ago people were, as expected, asking, “Where’s the global warming?” Answer: it’s right here, right now.

The reality is that we’re experiencing our “January thaw” this first week of February. The Arctic blast delayed it, but now it’s here. The thaw usually lasts about a week and then cold weather returns. When I say “cold” I’m talking about high temperatures in the 40s or 50s, so don’t picture snow. March is only three weeks away and I’ve got my fingers crossed that Virginia has seen its last snow for this winter. Yet, snow certainly isn’t out of the picture. I’ve seen snow fall when fruit trees were blossoming. I’ve seen heavy, wet snow in late winter break all the branches off numerous Bradford Pear Trees, which must have the weakest branches in all of nature.

These warm temperatures almost tempt me to go outside and across the street to the park. I’m almost tempted to walk around the park. But that sounds too much like exercise, so I’d rather just open a nearby window and smell the outside air and hear the outside sounds and feel the air on my skin. And while I’m doing that I’ll close my eyes and imagine I’m walking around the park. The nice thing about imaginary exercise is that I can lean back, relax, and sip vodka on the rocks while I’m doing it. Real exercise can’t come close to that.

In a way, I’ll be glad when the thaw is over and cold temperatures return. I won’t have to worry about whether I should go to the park and get exercise. I won’t feel guilt while sitting at my computer and getting buzzed. I won’t feel bad about telling myself that I’ll get real exercise when spring gets here, at which point I’ll invent a new set of excuses for being lazy.

It’s cloudy now, and it looks like the skies are threatening rain. That’s too bad, because I had just decided to take a walk around the park, and now I can’t. If it rains on me, I’ll catch a cold, which will turn into pneumonia, which will kill me. I’d really like to exercise but I don’t want to die, so therefore I can’t exercise. So disappointed.

But one of these days I really will get some exercise. Really. It’s on my to-do list.