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. Or more accurately, complaining about the weather.
Lake Otsego
From bitterly cold to stiflingly hot, we’ve got the 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.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
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.
Pink petunias
Some time during May, summer drops by, usually in mid-afternoon. The morning is comfortable until the temperature goes way up and the humidity moves in. The leaves on the trees droop and it is definitely summer. Always too hot. Muggy. Humid.
Or, maybe it’s not hot enough.
“Hey, how come it’s June and we still need heat?”
In summertime, those triple H days — hot, hazy, and humid — give us a collective headache. Everyone complains. Relentlessly.
Autumn is New England’s winning season. It is everyone’s favorite time of year — except it’s much too short. There are oceans of dead leaves to shovel. We rate our autumn by the 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. Does anyone 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 tropical storm can push all the way up the coast. Those drenching rains ruin the fall foliage. Which makes everyone cranky.
And whiny.
We recover if the Sox are in the playoffs, but become downright grim if they aren’t.
Speaking of whiny, 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 whiny if their well went dry . That would be a serious rant!
New England. What’s not to love?
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Categories: #Photography, Humor, Politics, Seasons, Sports, Weather
CRANKY AND WHINY 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Hot and dry is good. Humidity – well, you have a right to complain. It’s like trying to breathe under water. Dare I mention climate change? While some parts of the earth will be drier, many parts will be more humid. I think living in a desert may be marginally better than living in a ‘greenhouse’.
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Neither is particularly good. We’ve always had that Triple H weather here in the summer, but we used to get rain and that broke it up. Now, we get the humidity but not the rain. It’s all dangerous and bad. Everywhere.
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Besides – what’s life without a good w(h)ine now and then?? 😉
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It’s part of what makes life worth living 🙂
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I expect it won’t be all that long until we’ll all be able to look back at the weird weather events we complain about today and refer to them as ‘the Good Times’!
We did not take anthropomorphic climate change seriously enough or soon enough.
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That thought haunts me.
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:- |
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I think everyone, everywhere, talks about the weather. In California, they gloat when it’s 72 and sunny (and dry). In Florida, they gloat all through the North’s winter season. But while we get lots of bad weather, we don’t get the natural disasters that others get. No earthquakes, volcanoes, mudslides, fires, droughts, etc. We get an occasional hurricane but nothing like the destruction that the ‘good’ weather parts of the country suffer through. So it all balances out.
My friend in FLorida can’t go outside during the day in July and August without risking heat stroke, but feels superior to people who have to deal with cold and occasional snow for a few months a year. That annoys me.
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I would rather deal with ice and snow than earthquakes, fires, and mudslides. I couldn’t breathe in Florida. I actually asked my doctor about it and she said I’d be INSIDE most of the year because in that kind of humid heat, I would be breathless. New England is just fine.
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The weather can be a real downer but seeing you at the flower nursery is so delightful.
Leslie
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I was just thinking how nice it will be to go back there in the spring.
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🙂
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I always find it amusing that people complain bitterly about weather. We were supposed to get 200 cm of snow which is 74 inches. It only hit the higher elevations, the most snow in history to fall at one time. The high winds 90 k which is about 60 mph moved it on through and we didn’t get snow, we got torrential downpours of rain. My son went shopping and jokingly (looking through the store window) asked if they had a canoe he could borrow to get to the car. smirk smirk. Had everyone in stiches. We have gas lines going in and they dug up all the crushed gravel we’de obtained to assist with the mini-lake that was our front yard. Weren’t impressed they dug it up and took it all away leaving us with mini-lakes again. Needless to say, we will be whining until they fix the problem. Yep, weather, ya gotta love it!
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If you have to have group complaining, weather is better than many of the alternatives. They really left you with the holes, but took away the earth? That’s definitely worth a good rant and a long whine!
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Lmao too true.
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I’m most interested in dragon territory there. If there are really dragons in this country, can there be a unicorn reservation somewhere as well?
And despite thinking I knew state borders pretty well, I never realized that Massachusetts juts into Connecticut like that at Blight and Basketball territory. I’m sure there’s a centuries old story behind why that border anomaly exists…
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And, how Rhode Island was ALSO part of Massachusetts, but was set up to take in the religious refugees FROM Massachusetts. Puritans. Ugh.
I’m pretty sure there are Unicorns in “Hippie Farmer” and “Hippie Student” land, and definitely among the “Cultured Hill-Folk.” Evil Unicorns live with Dragons where they plot things along with hooded government agents who have no faces.
Anything can show up in Gaycationland. Also, watch out for Killer Flies. They are the mad dogs of flying insects.
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As the saying goes – Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!
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That is part of the general ranting and whining process. Complain, complain, complain.
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Wait til next year!
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What do you suggest we do about it?
Leslie
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Laser beams controlling the weather on our flat planet? Haven’t you heard? That’s what the guvment is doing.
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Well it would surprise me. Governments seem to have a talent for mucking everything up.
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It’s called New England, somthere must be something British about it. If the Brits didn’t have the weather to discuss, discussions would not be worthwhile
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A lot of New England looks a lot like England, probably because the British, Scots, and Irish were the primary settlers. I think our weather is worse … or at least the weather in our part of Massachusetts is much worse, I’m sure if we didn’t have the weather to complain about, everyone would be tongue-tied,
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In Australia we have an expression “Whingeing Poms” which is a joking comment about the tendency of British migrants, and visitors to complain. Whingeing Poms may complain about Australian weather, too hot, too dry, too dusty, too many flies…. but I think they hate their own weather more.
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The Brits are in a permanently bad mood about weather. Too much rain. Not enough rain. Too cold. Too warm. Wet, dry, snow, no snow — you can’t win. That’s why they founded NEW England. It has terrible weather. They needed that!
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Never of weather as a sport but it sure gets a LOT of play. Excellent pickup!
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