Hmm... winter's coming

Yeah, it's that time of year. You can smell it in the air. That 'winter's coming' smell. You feel the chill. The wind whips around the Halloween decorations that you haven't taken down yet. You see the leaves falling from the deciduous trees, leaving their annual slop. Anyday now (or maybe several times already) the squalls and drifts will be a regular/ongoing occurance. That bitter to-the-bone wind will howl. Snowmen will sneer at you through the front window with their inheritly evil grins. Snow Angels won't seem so heavenly at all. A pile of wet, slushy boots will accumulate in the doorway. Jack Frost will nip at you like a crackhead begging for spare change.
Such is life in the northern latitudes:
There you are bundling up with gloves, hats and cussing while scraping off and digging out the family automobile. (Don't forget to get out the door 15 minutes earlier to warm it up so the heater gets going).
Then there's the back ache from shovelling the sidewalk and driveway; the mess from the salt and cinder on the roads. Of course this is the time of the year when everyone else on the road has somehow forgotten how to drive in snow even though they just did it last year...
There's the heating bill (damn oil prices) to occupy your mind unless you spent the last 4 months chopping enough firewood (unlikely scenario).
Winter has it's good moments too! It ends in the Spring.

Here in Arizona, what you call winter, I call Spring II. It's perpetually sunny, warm and there's somewhat of a chance to wear jeans and a sweater at night. I'm not sure if I can handle the next 4 months or so of 70 degree days, but I'll try my best. We all suffer in our own ways I guess... OUR suffering comes in the form of 'snowbirds'. The annual flock of the northerners swarming the valley like crackheads at a loose change convention. (It's so easy to make fun of crackheads, eh? See! They are good for something! Just like snowbirds!)

Once, a friend from back east described snow to me as what happens when rain freezes. I then asked "what is this 'rain' thing you refer to?"

Anyway; as you can only imagine, it's pretty effin' nice out here all the time... I'm gonna go sip on a cocktail in my lounge chair out back and incrementally increase my chances of acquiring skin cancer!!! Throw an extra marshmallow in your hot chocolate for me! Don't hate me, hate those bastards in the Southern Hemisphere who are about to have their summer (do they still call it winter??).