On Trend with Winter (or not…)

Wednesday’s Bike Ride Commute (12/08/10)

Here in Texas, we don’t want to be seen as untrendy by the rest of the states, so when it comes to winter, we do our best to fake it.  We bring out our cozy mittens and hats, we decorate our malls with images of attractive people playing in snow, and we put snowflake decals on the library windows so that maybe, for just a split second, someone will think that it is actually snowing outside.  But so far, all we really have that could be construed as vaguely wintry is cold.  It’s not even consistent cold; we got 70-something degree F warmth last Saturday, and who knows what today will bring?  At 9:30 in the morning, it’s already 65 degrees F (18 degrees C for my nerdy friends who, like me, think more in Celsius and metric than American units).

All of this is to say that riding a bike around town in December is very pleasant on most days.  It did feel chillier on Wednesday, but I would feel like a total wimp complaining about the cold here after spending my whole life in the Midwest, where we are winter trendsetters.  I’m excited to spend a week in Michigan for the holidays this month, but I am even more excited to spend another winter in Texas.  It turns out that when it comes to cold, snow, and ice, I really am a wimp.