OOOOKLAHOMA!

Where the wind goes whipping down the plains!

Holy hell, people. I live in Ohio, but for all the the air moving through my neighborhood at alarming speeds lately, you'd think I'd either landed in Tornado Alley or in Kansas, as Dorothy Gale's kooky next door neighbor.

We have had ca-razy weather here recently. As an example, I offer this: It was 77 degrees yesterday. Tonight, the low is forecast to be 25. My barometric head has been in an invisible vice for most of the last 24 hours.

You don't get a 50 degree drop in temperature without some atmospheric disturbances. While mom and dad got raging thunderstorms two hours south in Cincinnati, we got the wind. The sweet, dulcet tones of my wind chimes, tuned to Pachabel's Canon in D, turned into AC/DC's "Back in Black" at about 2 a.m.

So what is going on with the weather this year? A year ago last weekend (and, last weekend we again had temps in the 70s) we got almost 3 feet of snow here. I'm used to snow in March in Ohio. It's what we do. In February, we'll usually get a few 70 degree days where the nutballs bust out the shorts and tank tops and then Mother Natures laughs her ass off by dumping several inches of snow on us Easter weekend. Ha ha. We get it. We live in Ohio.

This year has seemed like a never ending game of weather double-dutch. You've got your spring/summer wardrobe right there - looking at it longingly. And like that game of double-dutch you keep trying to time your entrance right. I'm jumping into the t-shirts. No, wait. Maybe next weekend. No, wait. I missed it. Crap. OK, here it comes. I'm ready! Nope. Before you know it, it's June and you have a closet full of turtlenecks and Land's End sweaters that don't go so great with your newly-purchased flip-flops.

On the upside, it looks like next week we'll be starting our warm-up for real. Our slow ascent into the 50s, where we'll remain, happily for awhile, because the words "wind chill" are absent from our forecast. By Passover, we will be in the upper 60s, and sleeveless tops will be en vogue - way too early, if you ask me. My thought is, if you are wearing shorts in April, what is there left to wear in August, when it is 102?

Ah, Ohio. You have to love a place with 100 degree fluctuations in temperatures in any given year and a population still large enough to boast three major cities. I think it's the weather that makes us crazy, actually.