Just this morning, I was complaining to my brother that I’m already sick of winter in Maine.
“Cheer up,” he said, “You’re not really sick of winter, because it’s not winter yet. You’re still sick of fall.”
How encouraging. He’s probably the person who came up with the Maine Tourism Board’s current headline: “Winter is When Maine Really Sparkles” or some such tripe. As I type this, there’s a couple feet of snow sparkling leering at me from outside the window. Well, I think it’s leering. It was leering at me when I looked at it before it got dark around 3:30. This weekend, we’re supposed to be hit by a Nor’easter with snow, wind and blizzard conditions. How jolly. I’ll lay in another pallet of toilet paper and bread. That’s what New Englanders stock up on whenever bad weather is forecast. I have no idea why.
Me, I stock up on books. This is why I went to the library this morning and returned with several cloth bags just bulging with reading material. Daughter filled her bags with books about fairies, animals, some graphic novels featuring “Fashion Kitty”, one of the Warrior books and a few American Girl books just to round things out.
Son opted for his usual Fantasy novels by R. A. Salvatore and others and some art books. He’s spending so much time on his art lately that he has less time to read. But every once in awhile, like a drowning man gasping for air, he’ll surface from the art and read great gulps of a novel late into the night.
I got my usual mixed bag of fiction and non-fiction. In case you’re really interested, here’s a list in no particular order of what I’ll be reading as the winds wail and the generator burns up gallons of propane when the power goes out.
The Top 10 of Everything by Russell Ash. ( A bathroom book if ever I read one.) Webonomics by Evan I. Schwartz (so I can see how well he did at predicting what was going to happen to the Net from the vantage point of the early 90s. So far, he’s not doing too well. He says paypal type operations have no future.) Google Hacks by several authors. (Hmm, I’m noticing a trend here.) The Modern Deer Hunter by John Cartier. (Well, maybe a couple of trends.) Natural Ideas for Christmas. (We’re not celebrating Christmas so I have no idea why I got it, but I’m sure I had something in mind.)
The Lobster Chronicles, Life On A Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw. (She’s the author of The Hungry Ocean, a great read.) When You Need A Lift But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink or Drink a Bottle of Gin by Joy Behar and Friends. (These are all subjects that Mainers start thinking about sometime between October and May.) Chat by Archer Mayor, another Brattleboro mystery. (I’ve spent a lot of time in Brattleboro and I love reading mysteries set in places I’ve spent time in.)
Three Sisters, A Charlie Moon Mystery by James D. Doss. (This is the series with Charlie’s aunt, Daisy, a Ute shaman, helping him whether he wants her to or not. I’ve really enjoyed every one of them. The characters just keep getting better. If you like Tony Hillerman, try these.)
I’ll preface this by saying that the last book on my list The Intellectual Devotional General Edition has mistakes in it. I found one of them and there are comments on the book’s website citing other mistakes. A tad more editing would have been a good idea, but even so, it’s a darned good book. So there. I got it from the library, but will be buying it and its companion volume, The Intellectual Devotional American History Edition as soon as Ma Nature quits dumping snow on my little corner of Maine.
How can you not like a book which begins with John Smith and the Pequot Wars and ends with The Simpsons and Ronald Reagan? (I love the irony of the Pequots having the world’s biggest casino in spite of earlier attempts on the government’s part to eradicate them from America.) In between, there’s lots of good stuff like a page about James Baldwin. Although I read his novel Go Tell It On The Mountain back in high school, I never knew that he was gay or that this distanced him from the mainstream civil rights leaders because they didn’t want to be associated with a gay man. Of course, many of the leaders like King and Abernathy were also ministers, so this doesn’t surprise me. It angers me, but it doesn’t surprise me.
If you’re looking into the teeth of a Nor’Easter or a Sou’wester or some other directionally-enabled weather, hie thee to your library and check out some books on my list or someone else’s list. Or just browse the shelves, picking books at random to stuff into your book bags. Heck, even if you’re facing a long run of sunny days with beach weather temperatures, you should get some books. That way you’ll have something to read at the beach.
We have beaches in Maine. They’re currently covered in two feet of snow, but I’m not bitter. I have my books. Check back in 8 days when winter officially starts. I may be just a tiny bit bitter by then.
8 Comments
We do the same thing whenever the weather is going to get bad. Oh, and we stock up on real essentials for bad weather. The Fixings for hot chocolate and cookies.
Of course, the state of New Mexico shuts down for flurries, except the hardier folk (like us) that live in the mountains.
It’s not because flurries are bad, but because Albuquerquians can’t drive well in good weather. When it becomes bad weather, Oy. Vey! Ist Mir! There are people down the mountain that believe that 4-WD means you can stop on a dime on pure black ice.
We get a lot reading done in the winter, even if there are only a few inches of snow.
Happy real snow days!
//”You’re not really sick of winter, because it’s not winter yet. You’re still sick of fall.”//
Hey, your brother is pretty funny, too!
all we have over here is rain
I wish for snow every year but we don’t get it - ah well- happy reading 
just looked at the link for the History book you mentioned- amazing the blurb at the top says American history is 3 centuries long lol- what about everything that happened before the europeans arrived?ey
Well, Elisheva, you may be surprised to find that Mainers aren’t great at driving in snow either. A state trooper told me that the first cars tipped over on the highway median every fall are 4WD vehicles.
People drive like maniacs in all kinds of weather here. Unfortunately, the roads have three foot shoulders that drop off six inches at the edges, so there’s nowhere to go if something happens.
But as they say here, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Shine On,
Lill
Please don’t encourage my brother, Ant. He grew up watching 3 Stooges videos and it left a mark on him.
Actually, he still watches 3 Stooges videos, which is kind of a strange thing for my spiritual advisor to be doing.
Seriously though, he is funny. And smart. And a wicked good writer. Maybe I need to rethink watching Curly, Larry and Moe.
Shine On,
Lill
Psychodiva, I love your name. Yeah, I noticed that about the history book too. Some of my ancestors were fishing off the coast of Maine before the Europeans got here and some were on Cape Cod then too.
Technically, I suppose it wasn’t America then, but it had a history.
Shine On,
Lill
Living in Colorado, we have big snow storms come blowing through and then everything’s sunny the next day and the roads are clear. We rarely get storms that sock us in for more than a day, but I love them. I love the excuse to do nothing but read and knit for 24 hours.
I supposed our high of 54 doesn’t seem that bad now. Snow days in Vegas consist of trying to build a snowman from a couple of inches of snow and watching people slip and slide all over the roads and sidewalks. I always get a kick out of the dogs in the snow, first the trick is getting them out the door then the fun really begins. I must also remind the kids walking out there barefoot is not the best idea.
Heather
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