It's Sudafed season down south
Alaska has its mosquito and mud season. Vermont and New Hampshire have their mud seasons when the winter snows begin to thaw. Western states have their fire seasons. And down south, we have Sudafed season.
Until I moved to Louisiana, I had no allergies to pollen at all. Cats, yep. And for some reason, handling some fibreglas fabrics made my hands swell up like balloons. I found that out helping my late mother hang some curtains one year. But I don't recall ever having a problem when the blossoms filled the trees and the flowers began to bloom.
But Louisiana is a special state. They've got plants here that rival triffids. Winter is short here, shorter than the summers in Vermont where they have nine months of winter and three months of bad sledding. So when the spring rains come in the bayou state, so also comes mud, mosquitos and enough pollen to turn my black 1985 Subaru station wagon yellow. And I automatically head to acquire generic forms of Clor-Trimeton and Sudafed from the Wal Mart and walk around in a sinus-stuffing, sinus-draining, itchy-eyed haze until things calm down somewhat.
When I moved down south, friends asked my why I did it. Although I grew up in upstate New York and lived many years in Connecticut and Massachusetts, I've always felt attracted to the southern United States. There are several generations from a limb of my deadbeat dad's family buried in a cemetery in Amite, Louisiana, not too far from Kentwood, the town Britney Spears calls home. But that's not the reason.
I hate the cold. I hate cold weather. I had one decent vacation in my life and that was a week spent laughing and scuba diving with a wonderful woman in Aruba. It was $12 for a case of Amstel beer, which is made at a brewery on the island, and $8 was the deposit on the bottles. Visibility 75 feet down was about 150 feet. If you want a great vacation, head to Aruba. The warm tradewinds blow constantly and the sky at night is filled with trillions of stars blinking from horizon to horizon. Don't take a package like all tourists do; rent a studio for the week on the north end of the island. It'll be less expensive and much more fun to piece the package together yourself.
The vacation ended and I flew back into Boston on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. I got off the jet and ... it was snowing. Not heavy snow, but late winter snow that was wet and cold. It was great to be in Boston on St. Patrick's Day, just not in the snow. As I stood waiting for the trolleys to take me into work over the next few weeks, the cold sleet would pour on me, the cars would drive by and splash me with slush and I'd get into work with wet, cold feet and have to work like that all day. I said to myself, "That's it. I've had it. I can't stand it anymore." The only thing that kept me going was visualizing myself back in Aruba, and the fact that I lived only a mile and half from Fenway and baseball season would soon start.
The biggest difference between the south and the north is that when the weather gets unbearable down south, the women take clothes off. Now ask me again why I like living down south.
I love to swim but I don't swim much down here. There's a lot of water in Louisiana, but most folk don't swim in it. They've got snakes in the water down here, water mocassins, as well as snapping turtles (I saw one with a 2 foot diameter shell a few years back) and, oh yeah, alligators. If you go swimming in fresh water down here, most of the time it's clorinated. The alternative is to go tubing with some friends. Buses drive you up the road and you take your cooler full of beer and sandwiches and your truck tire inner tubes and float lazily down a river for the next four hours or so until you return to the spot where you parked your car. You can feel catfish nibbling your toes as you float down the river but I've yet to see a snake when I've been tubing, although I'm sure there are some there somewhere. That's why you need the beer when you're tubing. Anesthetic properties just in case of snake bite.
Pretty soon in Louisiana it'll be like scuba diving. The humidity will rarely fall below 80 percent saturation, and I'll be hot and sticky and feel like a used 5-day deodorant pad. But it's better than feeling like a frozen fishstick. The weather will become unbearable and the women will start taking clothes off. It's a tough life.
Use the comment function to tell me what special seasons your particular geographic area has.
---Until I moved to Louisiana, I had no allergies to pollen at all. Cats, yep. And for some reason, handling some fibreglas fabrics made my hands swell up like balloons. I found that out helping my late mother hang some curtains one year. But I don't recall ever having a problem when the blossoms filled the trees and the flowers began to bloom.
But Louisiana is a special state. They've got plants here that rival triffids. Winter is short here, shorter than the summers in Vermont where they have nine months of winter and three months of bad sledding. So when the spring rains come in the bayou state, so also comes mud, mosquitos and enough pollen to turn my black 1985 Subaru station wagon yellow. And I automatically head to acquire generic forms of Clor-Trimeton and Sudafed from the Wal Mart and walk around in a sinus-stuffing, sinus-draining, itchy-eyed haze until things calm down somewhat.
When I moved down south, friends asked my why I did it. Although I grew up in upstate New York and lived many years in Connecticut and Massachusetts, I've always felt attracted to the southern United States. There are several generations from a limb of my deadbeat dad's family buried in a cemetery in Amite, Louisiana, not too far from Kentwood, the town Britney Spears calls home. But that's not the reason.
I hate the cold. I hate cold weather. I had one decent vacation in my life and that was a week spent laughing and scuba diving with a wonderful woman in Aruba. It was $12 for a case of Amstel beer, which is made at a brewery on the island, and $8 was the deposit on the bottles. Visibility 75 feet down was about 150 feet. If you want a great vacation, head to Aruba. The warm tradewinds blow constantly and the sky at night is filled with trillions of stars blinking from horizon to horizon. Don't take a package like all tourists do; rent a studio for the week on the north end of the island. It'll be less expensive and much more fun to piece the package together yourself.
The vacation ended and I flew back into Boston on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. I got off the jet and ... it was snowing. Not heavy snow, but late winter snow that was wet and cold. It was great to be in Boston on St. Patrick's Day, just not in the snow. As I stood waiting for the trolleys to take me into work over the next few weeks, the cold sleet would pour on me, the cars would drive by and splash me with slush and I'd get into work with wet, cold feet and have to work like that all day. I said to myself, "That's it. I've had it. I can't stand it anymore." The only thing that kept me going was visualizing myself back in Aruba, and the fact that I lived only a mile and half from Fenway and baseball season would soon start.
The biggest difference between the south and the north is that when the weather gets unbearable down south, the women take clothes off. Now ask me again why I like living down south.
I love to swim but I don't swim much down here. There's a lot of water in Louisiana, but most folk don't swim in it. They've got snakes in the water down here, water mocassins, as well as snapping turtles (I saw one with a 2 foot diameter shell a few years back) and, oh yeah, alligators. If you go swimming in fresh water down here, most of the time it's clorinated. The alternative is to go tubing with some friends. Buses drive you up the road and you take your cooler full of beer and sandwiches and your truck tire inner tubes and float lazily down a river for the next four hours or so until you return to the spot where you parked your car. You can feel catfish nibbling your toes as you float down the river but I've yet to see a snake when I've been tubing, although I'm sure there are some there somewhere. That's why you need the beer when you're tubing. Anesthetic properties just in case of snake bite.
Pretty soon in Louisiana it'll be like scuba diving. The humidity will rarely fall below 80 percent saturation, and I'll be hot and sticky and feel like a used 5-day deodorant pad. But it's better than feeling like a frozen fishstick. The weather will become unbearable and the women will start taking clothes off. It's a tough life.
Use the comment function to tell me what special seasons your particular geographic area has.
posted by NEWS4A2, blood-sucking journalist @ 21:55
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