Dear National Weather Service...

Dear National Weather Service,

I am writing because I believe a terrible mistake has been made. I live in the Deep South. I say ma'am, and y'all. I eat grits, and fried okra. People like me do not have heating blocks for our car engines. We don't wear gloves, except for those cute fingerless ones that make us look like refugees from the Oliver Twist Orphanage. And our "winter coat" is a stylin' leather jacket, with a silk scarf around our neck for a Stacy and Clinton "pop of color". We close all non-essential businesses, government offices and Starbucks if we have snow flurries.

So imagine my surprise, when today it was so cold that the plastic cover on the very expensive electronic key to my German sports car cracked. Hello, they have Alps and stuff in Germany. They know cold. Those expensive electronic key covers are engineered to withstand Alp Cold, but couldn't handle the Arctic Blast clearly misdirected at we gloveless souls.

As The National Weather Service, I believe it is incumbent upon you to rectify this situation, and return our typical "sweater weather". Certainly, some jurisdiction that thrives on ice fishing and...umm...slalom stuff, wants its weather back.

(It has occurred to me that there could be a more sinister explanation for this unpleasantness. Like, perhaps, some terrorist types have developed Weapons of Mass Refrigeration. Binary compounds, benign on their own, but bone-chilling in combination. And possibly these FreezeMongers managed to worm their way into the country on a flight from Siberia to Atlanta; then released their horror somewhere above Villa Rica. In which case, I'm sure, an investigation is ongoing. I really don't want to compromise National Security. I just want to feel my fingers again.)

So, please, National Weather Service, look into the possible misdeployment of Jack Frost. He is not welcome here, among grits and okra eaters. And the people who love him - those people who strap two-by-fours to their feet and slide down mountains - must be mourning his absence. It's a new year, and a fresh start. Let's start by putting the weather back where it belongs.

G.R.I.T.S. and Global Warming

I am most assuredly opposed to Global Warming. I think that glaciers should remain frozen. I think snow should continue to fall on people in puffy nylon suits who like to strap 2x6s on their feet and slide down big hills at Jackson Hole. I even think that you should be allowed to inhabit an Ice Palace in Quebec if you really want to pay a lot of money to sleep on animal skins in an igloo.

That being said, I am Fiercely Pro Local Warming.

You might be familiar with "G.R.I.T.S.". An acronym for, "Girls Raised In The South." Some of us are not of hardy stock. Hollywood has, historically, portrayed us as Sufferers of The Vapors; wilting and swooning in the heat. Setting Aint Bee off for Sweet Tea and smelling salts.

Unfortunate. Because the reality is that:

We can run the Peachtree Road Race on the Fourth of July, and vie for the ALTA (tennis) championships at high noon in August. We can wear linen to a garden wedding under a 100 degree sun without (the linen) wrinkling; and, of course, we wear sunscreen. We can even have a glass or two of Chardonnay at the wedding, without ill effect.

We can handle hot.

Winter? Well, not so much.

A White Christmas is not something we dream of, unless we are having a nightmare. Because we will inevitably find we are out of Classic Coke early Christmas morning, and the 24 hour convenience store will be closed due to the dusting of the White Stuff on the grass. So we'll continue to be out of Classic Coke when the grandkids arrive. Which, of course, they won't; because The Meteorologist Who Had a Major Facelift will have been on the air at The Station You Can Trust For Severe Weather Coverage for the last 48 hours; pointing to red, green, pink and white blotches and telling people to STAY OFF THE ROADS. (You will know he is VERY, VERY SERIOUS because he'll have a pair of scholarly glasses perched low on his nose, although he had that laser surgery and he doesn't need them.)

Also, we consider people who find cold weather "invigorating" to be, well, daft. Cuckoo. Nuts. We think they should stay in New Jersey, and keep their sub-sixty-degree temps there, too. (I was born in New Jersey, but had the good sense to leave as a toddler; in search of like-minded, warm-blooded company.) And, let me tell you, we resent the fool out of those Arctic Blasts. You people in New Jersey signed on for that nonsense. We did not.

Just this weekend I spent some time on the road; listening to a plethora (I love that word) of local talk shows. Including an "Ask the Lawyer" bit. No kidding, a landscaper called in to find out if he could sue the National Weather Service because they said it was going to rain and he sent his crew home and it didn't rain.

Silly, I know, but it got me thinking...perhaps we need a commission to study Weather Redistribution? I think we could solve the melting glaciers and keep the snow falling on the people in those puffy nylon outfits and the 2x6s strapped to their feet if we could just move the cold weather back up there where it belongs. Giant fans? Or some sort of Global Support Bra?

It's just going to waste here. Such a shame.