At midnight tonight, February 2010 expires. Forgive us if we kick it once or twice just to make sure it's dead.
If you got married, landed a job or won the Powerball this month, maybe it was good for you. But otherwise it was cold, wet, gray, windy and miserable — Syracuse with barbecue.
The National Weather Service says this is the coldest winter here in 33 years, and the wettest in more than 40. But you didn't need anybody to tell you that. It's in the mud on your shoes, the chill in your bones, the ache in your hip where you wiped out in the driveway when you stepped on a patch of black ice.
The other night, after it had rained all day, my wife came home and said it was snowing. I went out on the porch and looked. It was actually part rain, part sleet and part snow, like somebody tipped over a Slurpee machine. Even the dog wouldn't go out in it, and he has not only rolled in unspeakable things, but eaten them.
This was our February. Too nasty for a dog.
It wasn't just the weather. The whole world seemed all hunched-over and irritable.
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