Dear Winter,

What happened?

We used to get along so well. Back in the day you'd come around one or twice a year. Usually around January or February to break up the monotony of those cloud-clogged, Xmas-less days here in Portland. You'd blow into town, shut things down for a while and I'd get two days off from school. Sure, we didn't see much of each other but that's the way we liked it, right baby? A quick fling and then we'd go our separate ways. We were so young. So, I don't know, free.

Things were going great until I got a job at a company that doesn't close its doors for something like a city-wide shut down due to three inches of snow. Around that time you turned into a complete pain. One November morning a few years back you showed up out of the clear blue, knocked out my power and reset my alarm clock. I woke up with twenty minutes to get to work. A few months later I spent an evening trapped at a Beaverton motel because of you.

A motel.

In Beaverton.

Have you ever been to Beaverton? Sure, you've passed through but have you stayed for longer than an hour? It sucks out there! Nothing but car lots and Jack in the Boxes.

Jacks in the Boxes? Jacks in the Box? Whatever.

And who shows up again tonight with little warning? You, Winter. And this time you brought along something called "Freezing Fog." What sort of maniacal seasonal succubus could drudge up something like that? Only you, Winter. Have you no decency? Is there nary a drop of empathy in your frozen, black, teeny-tiny little heart?

I emerged from the office tonight at 10 to find a thick soup of evaporated moisture and a slick parking lot between me and my car. Driving home was flippin' hoot. While the streets weren't all that slick, I was still paranoid that I might take a curve too fast or hit a patch of black ice. I kept the speedometer at 5 MPH under the speed limit and all the other drivers laughed at me. I've never been so humiliated.

This is what my street looks like tonight. Sure, it doesn't look like much but that sign is covered in little ice droplets and the fog looks like something out of, well, "The Fog." And, no, not the good version. The new one that came out back in October.

And my mailbox was nearly frozen over and I had to fight to open it. And I slipped going the steps to my house. And there was a big wreck that shut down both the on-ramp and off-ramp to I-5 near Burlingame. And KATU says you'll be back again tomorrow morning and again tomorrow night with your new pal, Freezing Fog. Just in time for my evening commute. And there's no telling how many times you'll pop up in the coming months. And probably never on a weekend like a reasonable seasonal weather pattern.

Everybody says we should call it quits. Pack your stuff. I want you out of here. I don't know, go over to Freezing Fog's place. Or a motel.

In Beaverton.

You eat the continental breakfast and see how you like it!

Bitch.

Sincerely,

-B

PS: Don't give me that look. It's so over. Even more over than Duke Cunningham's political career.