We're back
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
I hate to tell you this. I don't want to rub it in. But, while you all have been dealing with a horrendous ice storm, broken tree limbs, and below zero weather, we've been sunbathing on the beach in Hawaii.
I know it's hard to imagine warm weather, swimsuits, and balmy tropical breezes when you are in the middle of winter. We had trouble packing appropriate clothes for our jaunt into paradise. "Surely, I'll need long pants," I said to myself, "and at least a lightweight turtleneck." Alas, happily, I was wrong. I needed shorts, shifts, swimsuits and thongs — the kind you wear on your feet.
The reverse happened as we were heading home and the reality of winter confronted us. We didn't quite don our long underwear in Honolulu — we made the shift in San Francisco. Even then, it seemed premature until we hit Denver and felt a blast of cold air off the tarmac. "We're back," we said to each other, shivering. "We're back."
Our jaunt to Hawaii has been planned for quite awhile. We were celebrating a whole bunch of things: My daughter graduating from college, for one thing and Jessica's birthday, for another. Tooltime Tim and I were yearning for any adventure during the holidays so we all chose Hawaii as our destination, and we did this long before tsunamis and ice storms. When rain plastered northern California for a full week and disasters were happening around the world, we wondered if we should just stay home.
Being Kansans at heart we wondered, "What will the weather be like in Hawaii?" It's their winter, too. Perhaps we'll have rain like we did in California. Thank goodness for the weather bureau and their long term forecasts. We were reassured that the worst we could expect in Hawaii was "partly cloudy." And believe me, partly cloudy in Hawaii with a 20% chance of rain is a horse of a different color than the same prediction in Kansas.
In Kansas it means you might as well EXPECT rain, skies will be mostly gray, and the wind will whip your clothes right off the line.
In Waikiki it meant 80 degree weather, a cloud slipping by every now and then to let you know the difference between sunshine and shade, and soft ocean breezes that barely tickle your skin with the scent of plumeria.
About a week into our stay Tooltime Tim was listening to the weather forecast. (I don't know, maybe he was homesick for Kansas or something.) "There's a cold front coming in," he announced. We all tuned our ears to the television weatherman's words. Sure enough, he was talking about a real cold front. Our eyes were glued to his map predictions with fleecy clouds, sunshine faces, and temperature suggestions.
"A cold front?" said Tim. "They call this a COLD front — it's only two degrees lower than today."
We all laughed about the impending cold front. "Seventy-eight degrees instead of 80," I said to my buddies as we headed for the beach in our flip-flops, "Can you believe it?"
"You better write your column about that when you get home," said my daughter. Of course, she immediately regaled us with all kinds of funny things that I could report and I had no pencil and paper to take notes — after all, I was on vacation.
We got our vacation pictures developed yesterday and immediately we put them up on the computer screen — we gathered around looking at the 12x18-inch vision of azure water, sandy beaches, blue sky, and bikinis. We tried to remember the warmth. We attempted to conjure up the memory of 10 days in the tropics, but my toes were cold and my breath was fogging up my glasses, even here in the office.
It's another day in the country — COLD COUNTRY — and Jessica has flowers in her hair to remind her of Hawaii and I've got mittens on my fingers as I type. We're back!
