In the cool of the evening When everything is getting kind of groovy

The cold is creeping in, winter has come. It has invaded our very bones, it has chapped our lips, brittled our hair. Yet it is somehow still so inviting... it reaches our noses with the smell of pine, it wets our tongue with the taste of falling snowflakes. Winter kisses some, and slaps others.

I feel that winter picks my hair up in long, spindly fingers, and licks it until icicles hang, and my cheeks are turned to crystal. But I feel warmth, for winter forces us to cocoon ourselves up in warm wool coats, wrapped tight from the icy slush, encased in a big warm hug. It forces us to brew warmth in a cup, hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks.

And I love winter. Despite some of my grumblings about the cold, or wind, or ice, winter is my favorite season. I love going to the park and sledding, I love snowball fights, I love bringing icicles home to live in our freezer until August. I love Solstice (which is coming up on monday), and I love the smell of coming snow. People are just very fickle. We want what we haven't got, and when we get it, we n0 longer want it. In the summer, "I wish it were cool and wintery", in winter, "I wish it was warm and summery". You can't exactly have both at the same time, so enjoy it as it comes!

Enjoy the frost flowers on the windowpanes enjoy the feeling of a warm shower after you've been outdoors, enjoy making snowmen, or snow angels, be you twelve or twenty two or one hundred and two. And enjoy it especially because who knows how much longer we've got? Already global warming is giving us much less snow, and, not to be morbid or anything, but no one really knows when they're going to die. I don't believe in living each day as their last, but I do believe in keeping the idea close in your thoughts, so as to motivate you to live each day to its fullest. I walked outside this morning, and do you know what I smelled?

Snow.

And now I am sitting here waiting.

Waiting for the snow to come.

Title Quote: Imogen Heap, Spooky

the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet

This is the Russian Birthday song, or Crocodile Gena's song.

What's so funny is what the song means:

So what if pedestrians run
clumsily through puddles
and water is flowing along the asphalt like a river.
It's unclear to the passers-by
On this horrible day
Why I am so happy.

I am playing the accordion.
In front of the passers-by
Unfortunately, my birthday
Is only once a year.

and it goes on to tell us about there being eskimos and other weird things, but I couldn't find the rest of the translation.

Here's the phonetic version of the Russian, for anyone who wants to sing it instead of our boring happy

birthday at their next party.

Poost begoot neooklyooshl
Peshehodee po loosham
Ee voda po asfaltoo rekoi
Ee neyasno prohosheem
V etot dyen nepogoshee
pochemoo ya vesyelee takoi

Chorus: sing twice
Ee ya eegrayoo na garmoshkye
Oo prohosh na veedoo
K soshaleneeyoo dyen roshdneeya
Tolko raz v godoo

Hope you enjoyed!

Title Quote: Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek