a little perspective

Spoken like someone with 4-wheel drive and a two-car garage, a fellow Jamestownian once told me, "If weather's your only complaint, you have nothing to complain about."

Dislike.

True. The only shootings in town are bb guns at car windows, or more frequently, some former country bumpkin, violating city code, guns a raccoon in his tomato garden. I check the call log at police everyday. The most frequent offense: Runaway Rover.

Last year I wrote about the 90 inches of snow we received and then the floods which occurred after and how I refused to wear boots of any kind besides my pointy-toed ones. Well, the goal was to continue that trend this year, but instead, I fell flat on my face and not literally, thankyouverymuch.

Hi, my name is Katie and I wear cloddy snow boots, even on days it doesn't snow. Now, when the Great Spirit takes me to the big beach in the sky, he's going to ask me how I've suffered. Did I not feed you, he'll ask? Clothe you? Shelter you?

Yes, yes. But frankly father, I could have done without all the clothes. Give me some warm weather and I'd be happy to donate my double-wide green parka to the children suffering in Africa, even if they don't suffer from cold.

See, the weather's been so cold here for so long, ice covers every street. And atop the ice is a fresh frosting of newly fallen snow which looks celestial until the world wakes up, walks in it and turns to shades of gray. Or yellow. Or brown.

So instead of trying to tempt fate, I've instead worn faux-fur lined black boots to work, and even at work. And at least in North Dakota, those aren't against the dress code.

Until then, I'll continue to complain. Already, experts are forecasting floods, not as high as last year's 500 -year flood, but as high as the 100-year flood 12 years its senior. If flooding this bad is expected every 100 years, why has it occurred three times since 1997?

But even if the snow should stop and water remain within the banks of its respective river, I'll still find reason to whine. Indeed, I'll always have the boys who tuck their hoodies in their jeans.