On Days Like This I Hate Texas

If you ask most people who were born in the South, they'll tell you they hate cold weather.  This isn't, as most northern folk believe, because they've never experienced cold weather.  In fact, the South is quite good at packing a whammy of a frigid sucker punch a few times every winter. The reason they hate cold, is because cold in our world, isn't beautiful.  In the north and much of the West, cold can be downright gorgeous.  If you're from New Mexico, for example, cold looks like this:

Beautiful, right?

But here in central Texas (and vast other parts of the South), cold looks like this:

Rainy, barren, brown, and 35 degrees F.  Blech.  You can't see the rain in this picture, but I promise, it's there.  I took this on my bike ride yesterday, just a few minutes after it started to rain on me, 10 miles from home.

  

If it were not for the happy circumstance of living the first 8 years of my life in New York, where I frolicked in snow frequently as a child, I, too, would unilaterally believe that I hated cold weather.  If you ask me (and didn't you just?), the most repugnant kind of weather on earth is 35 degrees and rainy.  It's awful.  Howlingly awful. Inappropriate, inconsiderate, and nasty.  I don't mind either of those weather items in isolation. 

Rain?  Fine.  The earth needs it.  It gives me an excuse to make tea, splash in puddles, and avoid washing my car.  

Cold?  Fine.  The earth needs it.  It gives me an excuse to cuddle up under cozy blankets, make fires, and start planning ski trips.  

But 35 degrees and rain in combination are primordially insulting to me.  I mean, come on.  Just a measly 3 degrees colder, and we could have SNOW!  (oh, glorious snow, how I miss the days when you were a part of my life...)  Or if it were 10 degrees warmer I wouldn't wish so fervently for death (that's probably a lie, but I'm trying to make a point, here) as I bike to school in the cold cold cold rain.  If it's going to be 35 degrees, at least make it a clear day, so that the air is crisp and clear, the sun shines brightly upon my red-tipped ears and nose, and at night the stars seem close and brilliant.  

Having so clearly stated my preferences, I would appreciate it if the weather gods would obey, but no.  I just checked the forecast, and we've got at least another four days of royally grotesque weather ahead of us before the sun peeps through.  The fates taunt me with their cavalier indifference to my climactic preferences.  I shall have to do something about this, I think.