Welcome to New England where our most popular regional sport is politics. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey cannot compete with the joys of arguing politics. That this year is politically the worst experience since we drove out the British only means that all our other complaints will have to wait in line until the political rage has been satisfied, at least temporarily.
When politics and sports are finished, we move on to the single sport in which everyone, of any age, can actively compete.
Weather.
From bitterly cold to stiflingly hot, we’ve got the perfect weather to cover it.
Winter is too long, too snowy, too icy, and much too cold. I couldn’t agree more. Everyone is cranky and whiny from the first flakes through final melting. Of course, mud season, the inevitable followup to the heavy snow, is no one’s favorite, discounting the dogs who revel in it.
Spring? What spring? Where are the flowers? Why can’t we get a decent spring season? Is this the punishment of a malign deity? Until the lilies bloom, New Englanders are cranky.
Some time during May, summer drops by, usually in mid-afternoon. The morning is comfortable until the temperature goes way up there, the humidity moves in. The leaves on the trees droop and it is definitely summer. Which is always too hot. Muggy. Humid. Or, it may not be hot enough.
“Hey, how come it’s June and we still need heat?”
Those triple H days — hot, hazy, and humid — give us a collective headache. Cranky and whiny, that’s us.
Autumn is everyone’s favorite season except it’s much too short. and there are oceans of dead leaves to shovel. We rate our autumn by brightness of leaf and you can stand on line in the grocery and hear people commenting that “this one isn’t as good as the year before last and who remembers 2012? Wasn’t that a doozy?”
We live in the “Snow and Long Commutes” region. Especially the snow. And Worcester.
On a bad year, heavy rains from a southern tropical storm drives up the coast and ruins the foliage. Which makes everyone cranky. And whiny. We get over it if the Sox are in the playoffs, but are even crankier if they are not. I know people on Facebook who, in the middle of a summer-long drought during which we haven’t gotten a drop of rain, will rant furiously on the day the drought breaks. I bet they’d be even more cranky and whiny if their well went dry . That would be a big, serious rant!
New England. What’s not to love?
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Categories: #Photography, Humor, Politics, Seasons, Sports, Weather
WEATHER WHINES 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Well now I know why it is called New England, same outlook as Old England. I thought we British were meant to be the whiny ones. Australians have a term for it. “Whinging Poms”. But it’s all in good fun. I love that map too.
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I don’t think we really take the weather all that seriously. We do get pounded in the winter, though. I didn’t mind when I was younger, but it’s rough now. Pretty, but difficult to move around. Fortunately, what with being retired, we don’t have to go anywhere as long as we keep our cupboards up to snuff.
I do get pissy about people who complain about rain in the middle of a drought. Talk about whinging!
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I do too. I recall after we had bad bushfires in South Australia many years ago I vowed never to complain about wet weather again. Rain is precious in a dry country.
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The rivers dried up and wells went dry. And there is no “public” water for most of us. If your well doesn’t work, you’re done And then … the woods. People are incredibly short-sighted. We NEED rain, even when it’s inconvenient. We also need snow packs and bees and other little things, but most people are oblivious. It’s an international problem..
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We have similar weather here but we celebrate it because we think we are hearty. When the temperature goes over 40, some guys break out the shorts because summer is too short. When it is 10 degrees out we say it is Bear weather, as in Chicago Bears. There is nothing like watching a game at Soldier Field when it is 10 degrees and the wind is off the lake, because the stadium is on the lakefront. We celebrate all seasons. The weather has probably made us a little crazy, however.
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I have heard this from others. I was much more celebratory when I was a lot younger. Now I’m older and i’m cranky ANYWAY, with or without the weather.
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I do not care for the extremes of the weather anymore. Now I would complain, but no one else here wants to hear it.
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Two days of 60s, near 70 this week…we’ve stopped whining about the weather for a short while. With politics, however, it looks like our whining will be of the non-stop variety for quite some time. Cranky? You bet! I just keep signing petitions, sending emails and making phone calls to DC. Cranky? Yes, but persistent…
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Sadly, we aren’t going to be able to ride this presidency out. i heard today on the news that he is busy raising money for his NEXT campaign. Lord help us all!
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A sad state of affairs…
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California has been in a drought for what seems like an eternity but it didn’t take long before people started complaining about all the rain.
As an aside, I’d love to see New England in the fall.
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Early October. Two weeks from the end of September to mid October is optimum because pretty much the entire region is glorious. If we don’t get a hurricane or some weird early snow. Every once in a while, we get a few inches of snow in September or October that ruins the foliage … it doesn’t happen often, but you really CAN’T predict the weather.
Usually, though, it is magnificent. If it’s not perfect in Massachusetts, it will probably be breathtaking in Vermont or New Hampshire. Every year it comes and every years, it takes my breath away. I think I moved here for the autumn. It may be brief, but it’s wonderful.
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several years ago when TV was a reality for us still, we had had a year of dreadful drought, not unlike last year’s; then in early fall the heavens opened up, and it rained for about two days straight. Not a lot, but it was wet.
On the news that night the news elfinette introduced the weatherman the way they do, with a cute tie-in comment, only this time she said, sighing, “Frank, can you tell us if we are EVER gonna see an end to this RAIN…” and I thought, oh, she’s dead now. And left poor Frank the weatherman to clean up the mess. He looked horrified (but smiling) and he said, “well, you know, Kathy, we do really sorta need that rain right now, it’s been pretty dry here in New Hampshire all summer…” and went on to do the weather. When they returned to Kathy she was much less perky (you just knew Words had been Exchanged) and said, “well, yes, Frank, you’re absolutely right…” and gently bailed herself out of that deep dry ditch…
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I’m always amazed at how so many people have NO idea what is going on in the natural world. If it isn’t on the news, it isn’t happening. Even if it IS on the news, it may very well not be happening.
We are becoming a really STUPID nation.
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trouble is, these days there is so much gee whiz junk news that turns out to be filler for more gee whiz junk news, that unless you know your sources it’s hard to tell the difference. And words/blogs/sites meant to be satirical (in big letters, no less) are often taken for reality. I read almost halfway through one this morning, very well done, and I kept thinking, this is too easy. Too awful. Then I went back and looked, and sure enough, it’s a satire site.
Two of the hardest things to do properly is Satire, and Sarcasm, online or in print, since both of them depend so heavily on voice. Gulliver’s Travels was the first, and a great many people actually believed THAT.
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I can’t remember how many times I thought something from “The Onion” was real!
You mean … Gulliver’s Travels ISN’T real? I’m shocked!
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Haha so true!
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I know. It’s kind of funny if you think about it.
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Love that map. Hey, if you can’t complain about the weather or the sports or the naybahs, you can always complain about traffic, tourists, or taxes. We’ve taken fussing to a new high art, and let’s face it, once you get the wood in just ahead of the first blizzard, there’s not much else to do but fuss.
And as my husband’s uncle liked to say, “stop in anytime and listen to us making up old colorful Yankee phrases…”
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I have a big sign over my kitchen door which says “House Rules: NO WHININ’ ”
Mostly. Winter is complaining time because without baseball, football, or flowers, or bright leaves, that’s what there is to do. But I also love it.
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Judy, we’re already sticking angry fingers in the air and shouting epithets about the Red Sox’s stinky pitching and Papi-less offense and we’re less than a dozen games into the beisbol season.
As for 45, let’s trade him for 3 elite pitchers, 2 sluggers and a box of jock straps.
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Yeah, New Englanders have a hard time adjusting to the gripe milieu out here. We pretty much like whatever we get. It’s a cowboy thing. There’s even a joke/story about it.
New England dude came west hoping to be a cowboy. He joined up with a cattle drive that was going north from Cheyenne to Billings. The first night, after a long day in the saddle, the New England dude was sore. He sat down to grub with the other cowboys and bitched and moaned about how sore he was, how dusty it was, how the horseflies bit him all day, how the water they had to drink was brackish and the food was awful.. None of the other cowboys said anything. They knew it was just a matter of time before that dude wised up or got out and they didn’t care either way.
The next day when they sat down around the campfire for biscuits and beans, the New England dude moaned even louder. His saddle was hard, his ass had blisters, his horse was stupid, the cattle were stupider, the horseflies more vicious, the food was awful. The third day went about the same.
Finally the fourth day, the cowboys were fed up hearing his complaints. Especially the cook was fed up. It wasn’t easy feeding these cowboys on a bag of beans, a slab of bacon, flour, baking powder and water, but he did it, three times a day, day in and day out because cowboys need to eat. That evening, when the cowboys sat down for grub, the New England dude commenced his litany of woe. The saddle was more like a 2 x 4 than a saddle, his horse didn’t even have a brain, the horseflies were as big as sparrows, and the beans were too salty.
When he said that, the cook came out from behind the cook wagon and shoved a shotgun in the cowboy’s face.
“Too salty, you say?” he cocked the gun.
“Yes, and that’s just the way I like ’em,” said the New England dude who never complained again and turned out to be a pretty decent cowboy after all. 🙂
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Everyone complains. It’s a regional thing. But people also love it. Which is why, despite sometimes truly terrible weather that is hard on older bodies, we stay. Because it’s crazy, but it’s special. I can deal with all the complaining. Except when people who have been living through months of nearly perfect weather (with NO rain and dropping water levels) complain about the first rainy day since last April That pisses me off. These days, they have lots of other things to complain about, so the weather isn’t quite the big deal it can be on other years.
Maybe we won’t have a drought this year, which would be nice. We can’t fix the politics or make the teams play better, but we can stop worrying about the well running dry. That’s something!
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I think the regional differences are really cool. 🙂
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When my son moved up here, his life dramatically improved. He had been a massive complainer his whole life, but when he got to Massachusetts, he discovered EVERYONE was just like him. Phew! One of the funniest things about this whole northeast region is that it isn’t really huge, but the differences between places is surprisingly large. Funny, mostly. And I do love those lobstahs.
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Nice opening line but your forgot to credit Spencer Tracy/Frank Skeffington/James Michael Curley and Edwin O’Connor, “The Last Hurrah”.
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Duly noted, though not forgotten.
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Maybe we should add the term “Quick Thinker” when describing the typical New Englander
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That or, “Determined to survive” 🙂
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Maybe we should add the term “Quick Thinker” when describing the typical New Englander
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