Is spring coming or what?!?!?!

Yesterday, I felt like hugging the trunks of the flowering plum blossoms and the purple pink magnolias for greeting our gray streets with color and life! All you could see were the spots of color from yellow daffodils poking out of the ground, the tiny light green buds sprouting from branches, bright blue skies and crisp dark shadows. Streets were bustling with women in flashy sunglasses carrying their iced coffees on the way back to work, groups of men walking and laughing on their way to lunch with their sleeves rolled up, delivery men smiling and everyone commenting to each other on the nice weather.

Yesterday, the sun was warm as it basked my face and pale arms, my little toes stretched and wiggled happily in my sandals, cooped up for so long during those long cold winter months... (I knew that pedicure last week was well deserved!!)


I love warm weather (and heat) so it's no surprise that I was suddenly energetic and not so angry anymore... sort of...

Yesterday, we had weather like we used to have in California, comfortable in the high 60s, low 70s... warm and dry enough to walk around without getting sweaty. I walked 30 blocks along the Hudson river after work, enjoying the gentle breeze and warm afternoon sun like all the other sun starved souls out there. People were checking each other out, eyes were twinkling, cheeks flushed, it was like everyone was finally waking up after a long cramped night in a cold lumpy bed.

And then, today...
foggy. cold. gray. chance of showers. on a Friday. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Today, everything is in shades of gray, people shrugged on their dour black jackets again, the subway was a dim blur of darkness- expressionless faces in black and gray coats, blankly staring at nothing. Scraggly branches scratched against the gray sky- buildings enshrouded in the fog... even the white blossoms which yesterday looked like bright and clean, today looked dirty and tired. OK, yeah, it's like San Francisco on a typical summer afternoon, but still...

It's almost the middle of April and we've only had 2 comfortably sunny days this year!! This seems to have been the longest winter I've ever experienced... There used to be like 1 or 2 days in February or March that would give us a hint of spring, just a taste so that we don't commit suicide, but this year, even Easter was still frigid, my purple fingers clutching at my sleeves, shoulders hunched up against the wind...

Yes, I am a weather person, and when it is cold and dreary, my mood drops a few degrees. When it is raining, it drops a few more. And when it is windy... watch out! ANGRY Laurie comes out. The wind flips the dirt off the gritty streets, and aims it, seemingly, right into my eye. I heard that eyelashes have one main purpose- to protect your eyeballs from getting things into them. Well, I would like to get an exchange or complain about my lazy lashes, because for the last 18 years of wearing contact lenses, my eyelashes seem to have failed in their primary duty. I pretty much have worn glasses since birth, so I guess I went for vanity when I got my contact lenses rather than keep the glasses for my protection and well being.

My friends have endured my pain as the world stops- the panic!! Find a place to pull over! oh god, i hope there isn't someone walking on my heels because I'm stopping.RIGHT.HERE.RIGHT.NOW. Find an alcove, a side street, a phone booth, whatever, get out of the wind!!!! I feel the blinding sting of a razorblade (or is it a spiked wrecking ball?) making contact with my eye, and then the immediate welling of tears and grimacing as I silently grapple with the stabbing pain of this particle sharply prying itself between my contact lens and my eyeball. I frantically paw at my eye, trying to remove my contact lens, but the slippery salty tears make it impossible, and I plead over and over in my head that this piece of sand from hell kindly leave the vicinity of my fragile round eyeball all the while hoping that my makeup has not smeared my face unrecognizable with dripping mascara and eyeliner. Eventually, I get the contact lens out and hopefully the tears streaming down my cheeks have also flushed out the dirt particle... I'm still one of the few dinosaurs who wears hard contact lenses but the ordeal of cleaning them is made simpler if I am fortunately near a sink, water fountain, bottle of water where I can quickly rinse my finger and the lens so I can gingerly put it back in my eye. A quick inspection of the makeup front usually shows that the unaffected eye is still somewhat made up while the wounded eye is puffy, bloodshot, and completely devoid of eye makeup. It's not a good look.

Umm, anyway... so I hope the warm weather comes back, and that wasn't Mother Nature just playing its cruel February-warm-day trick on us. I NEED SUNSHINE NOW!!!