Winter Blues

I have long considered January to be the worst month of the year. Living in Chicago we are usually in the midst of a long winter where March 21^st seems like eons away. Not much good happens in the first month of the year and it is usually an exercise in survival. You tell yourself just get through these thirty-one days and all will be OK with the world. You tell yourself it is an character builder and all that other nonsense to get yourself through it.

It was different when I was a kid. When you are young, January is a great month. First off it started when you were still on Christmas break. Then when you went back, if it did snow it was great. One reason being that there was a good chance that the show would cause school to be cancelled. Then you could go out and play in the snow instead of being stuck in a classroom all day. Then if you were an enterprising youth you could go around the neighborhood and shovel driveways for up to ten bucks a driveway. It was white gold to a suburban youth.

However as you get older that weather sucks. Driving in snow is a pain in the ass. It makes getting to work a real chore. The snow would never cause your place of business to close. Then when you get home you will have to dig yourself out of your own driveway. One of the sad things about today’s society is that now when it snows I don’t see any kids walking the neighborhood looking to make some coin. I guess with the invention of the snow blower the days of kids making some money shoveling are gone. It is either that or kids are just a lot lazier now then they were back in my day.

So, as I sit here this morning I sulk. I know that I don’t have a week of vacation until April 10^th. That means I have three months to go before I can re-gain my lost sanity by having a week off to re-boot. I am lucky in that I get four weeks off a year. The bank being the anal, un-holy monstrosity that it is, already is asking me for my vacation schedule. I have as of now the weeks of April10th, June 19^th September 18^th and December 25^th off.

I always take a week off in early April to try and hit a Cubs game. I will usually go down to Wrigley and enjoy a Tuesday game when no one else is there. Then I spend the rest of the week doing some spring housework. I was planning to make a long overdue voyage to Columbus in June this year. My friend Chris is getting married out of town that weekend but, Joyce and I would still like to make it out there if not that weekend then sometime over the summer. (Dad, I will talk to you more about this later and see if I can even drag Vince along.) In September, as of now I don’t have anything planned. It is Joyce’s birthday so we can figure out if we want to do something or not. As for December I am heading to Vegas for a desert Christmas. I can’t wait for that one.

Looking at it as a whole, along with personal days and holidays I don’t have it to bad. My longest stretches without a day off (other then weekends) will be between the day after Presidents day until my April vacation. That will be a thirty-four day (or seven weeks) stretch where I will have to bide my time. All in all I can’t complain as I can do seven weeks standing on my head.