Life would be a lot easier during the winter if Her Cuteness could 1) tell me when her stomach is upset, and 2) know to run for the porcelain throne when it becomes unbearable.  That way, I wouldn't spend Sunday mornings cleaning a disgustingly stinky mess out of the carpet and the couch.

To be fair, at least this time it didn't happen in the middle of the night.  And, really, I should have been expecting it.  She'd been under the weather all week long with a "noticeable stomach issue" — I'll spare you the details, but I hope you can glean from that description at least a sense of what I'm driving for — and she had been holding her belly a little that morning.  That should have been my second clue.  The first should have been that she woke up at 6:30, a full hour earlier than normal.  But it was 6:30 in the morning, after all.  How coherent do you think I am at that time of the day?  On top of that, I'd been up late the night before enjoying a movie with someone.  It really added up to be a pretty good storm of events that just made the morning that much less entertaining that I had hoped it would be when I went to bed Saturday night.

It happened a total of three times.  By the third time, I had caught on to the fact that, like her father (umm…me…), her episodes are almost exactly one hour apart.  It was the same way back in November when this all happened the first time.  It's a weird clockwork thing that really comes in handy when you know you're going to get sick again, but you have things you need to get done.  As long as you plan your day in chunks no longer than 45 minutes, you're fine.  Okay, I admit, maybe "chunks" wasn't the best choice of words.  But the point is that I was able to wait for it and be ready and waiting with the bucket when the time came.  Woo-friggin'-hoo.

We wound up falling asleep on the couch after that episode, partly because we were both exhausted and also because she wouldn't let me get more than four feet from her that morning.  That's understandable — after all, it's pretty traumatic when you don't realize it's just part of having a stomach bug.  And, even at 27 years old, barfing still has not become one of my favorite pastimes.

The same "someone" I enjoyed the movie with — who Her Cuteness absolutely adores, by the way — brought over some Pedialyte that afternoon to help speed the recovery process, and stuck around with me until the youngster was about ready to wake from her afternoon nap.  I'm really hoping I get to write more about her here in the future, but that's a different story altogether.  By Sunday evening, we had shared some chicken soup and were both none the worse for wear.  But it's a day I'd just as soon erase from memory if I could.  All the same, it was just another day in my little slice of paradise (and there's no sarcasm attached to that, either)!

I felt it was my duty to update you on the tremendous winter storm we had on Saturday.  By the time it was all said and done, there must have been three, maybe even four snowflakes piled up outside my door.  With all that snow, you could hardly see the dirt the grass was growing in.  It was phenomenal!

Sarcasm aside, I got to enjoy some falling snow.  It's better than nothing, and more than I was beginning to expect this winter.  So, it felt a little more like a traditional winter for me.

And that was just one more thing this year has already delivered that has made me believe this this will be the Best Year Ever™ for InvertedMind.  And I'm going to be intentionally vague with that statement, for no reason other than to see what amazingly humorous thoughts you people can come up with for why this year is already so awesome.  It's been incredible since January 1, and it's only getting better.  The rest is going to be left to your wild imaginations — and I could only hope it would be half as exciting as what you're all sure to concoct.

I'm back!   And I'm ready to be stupid again!

For those of you who have read the site for the last five months, you know I've been on a major spiritual journey.  That's not over, but life has settled back into a good routine again.  I'm now ready to be the same sarcastic, over-opinionated, somewhat endearing moron you've come to love.

That said, I'd like to point out that it's snowing in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I know that, because I'm there, and I have windows in my house.  And it's all over the news, too.  That last one is actually an assumption, because I only watch the news by accident.   But in places that rarely see snow (or places like Delaware, which sees snow every single winter but apparently everyone forgets it from one year to the next — must be something in the water), this is big news.  And I guarantee there isn't a loaf of bread to be found in any store in this county.

Normally, I wouldn't make such a big deal out of this.  The reason it's big news for me is that we were above 70 already this month.  Suddenly we have a winter storm warning on us.  I've spent the entire day grinning like — as my grandfather so eloquently used to tell me — "a possum eating sh*t."

And that's one of his more poetic lines.

Of course, the bigger topic here is global warming.  Or, should I say, "global warming."  I did that because I can't manage air quotes in a blog post.  As accommodating as I try to be, I don't have the time or resources to travel the world, showing up at readers' doors, and doing air quotes while they read.

But I digress…

Actually, I don't.  I didn't have much of a point beyond the snow.  That, and I wanted to close by mentioning this: a rally to protest the world's overall response to global warming was recently canceled.  Are you ready for the sweet taste of irony?

It was snowed out.