
{"id":1475,"date":"2007-12-20T00:29:45","date_gmt":"2007-12-20T08:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/12\/20\/let-it-shine\/"},"modified":"2007-12-20T00:29:45","modified_gmt":"2007-12-20T08:29:45","slug":"let-it-shine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/12\/20\/let-it-shine\/","title":{"rendered":"Let it shine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Rebekah L. Cowell<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it once, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it a dozen times, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like Christmas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a segue into the favorite topic, our un-seasonably warm weather. True, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like December, even for the South. But for me, this is the best Christmas present the weather gods could bestow upon us, other than, say, a couple inches of rain. If you gods\/goddesses are listening, send us some rain, please! <!--more--><br \/>\nI say this is a gift, not because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m perverse but because I finally know what cold weather is about, and listen up ya\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it good.<\/p>\n<p>Due to work and family events, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been up and down the Eastern seaboard since March \u00e2\u20ac\u201d living in Maine part of the year and coming back home for the winter, hallelujah.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned a lot in this past year of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Northern Exposure\u00e2\u20ac\u009d:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Wool is your absolute best friend.<\/li>\n<li>Spring is actually \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mud-season.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect flowers until June.<\/li>\n<li>Yankees aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rude, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just cold.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Well, these are just a few of the things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned, but let me elaborate on #3. Picture this: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eight degrees as the high; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had six inches of snow fall during the night, more coming during the day; you have to shovel out your drive just to leave the house; to keep from losing a couple of digits you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to put on more layers than a Southerner has on a clean-wash day; by the time you get your car out of the drive, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to watch out for black ice; crawling along, you get to the grocery store, you unwind out of a few layers to shop in comfort, you fill your cart, you see neighbors, you nod and smile, but you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much feel like chewing the fat when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to get home before the blizzard begins and the roads turn to a skating rink; you check-out, bundle back-up, load your car while the sub-degrees sting your exposed skin (like cheeks and nose); miserable, you crank up the heat, crawl back home, run back and forth to the house with your grocery bags, almost break an ankle on the sidewalk you cleared that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frozen over again, and hunker down while the next snowstorm obliterates your shoveled drive. And, god forbid you have a child in tow \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough to make me cry! Ok, so perhaps this is not an everyday occurrence, or the whole state of Maine would shut down. But for a Southern girl, Northern Survival 101 involved a couple of days just as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve described. No wonder Yankees don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have time to wave or chat.<\/p>\n<p>So, listen up, yes, this weather is a gift! Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t complain about it to me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just going to advise you spend a week in Maine, Oklahoma, Iowa or Alaska!<\/p>\n<p>Because of our mild December, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had sunny days, perfect hikes and walks, (sure beats going to the gym and using a treadmill), picnics and days at the park. And one more thing: Climate does affect attitude. Here in our Triangle paradise, there is no rush to avoid the black ice, the below-zero temps, the incoming blizzard \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we can chat and talk with friends and neighbors, we can sit out on the lawn of Weaver Street and have brunch in the sun. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lucky, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I say. Believe me \u00e2\u20ac\u0153White Christmases\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are way overrated!<\/p>\n<p><em>Rebekah Cowell is a mother and writer, and a graduate of UNC who resides in North Chatham.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rebekah L. Cowell If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it once, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it a dozen times, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like Christmas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a segue into the favorite topic, our un-seasonably warm weather. True, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like December, even for the South. But for me, this is the best Christmas present the weather gods could bestow&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[37,38],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-christmas","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}