Thursday, February 5, 2009

For my dear friend Givinya...

My dear bloggy friend Givinya De Elba and I were chatting online a little while ago, she from tomorrow and summer as it is Down Under right now, and me from this evening and the dead of winter as it is here in upstate New York. In her corner of the world, they are having an insane heat wave, whilst in my corner of the world, it is cold-n-snowy as usual. With the assistance of a handy C-to-F converter, we ooohed and aaaahed and exclaimed about the extreme differences in our weather. She shared with me a set of adorable pictures of a wild koala who was photographed attempting to cool off on some family's porch in a tub of water (thereby reinforcing, as I told her, my American impressions and stereotypes of what Australia must surely be like* - koalas dangling from every tree branch, kangaroos munching on the veggie garden and packs of dingoes stealing babies at every opportunity. Oh, and let's not forget the crocs and sharks and how certainly all Australians must dress like this:



or



Unless of course, they look more like this....



or



which would be absolutely acceptable.) Anyhow, I told Givinya that I would have to take some pictures of our current weather for her, so after I tore myself away from the computer long enough to fix dinner for the family and all that jazz, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots. Sadly, there is nary a cute koala in any of them, actually there was nothing living to be seen on my street, excepting for a gentleman snowblowing his driveway up the block...

Anyhow, here now, for Givinya and anyone else who might care to view and imagine the frozen wasteland that is my property and neighborhood, is what it looked like outside the toasty walls of Chez Smith at approximately quarter past six this evening:



Above: The view out our front door. Note out by the street, how it is so much easier to collect our mail in the winter, as the snowbanks are high enough that should any mail drop from your mittened grasp as you leeeeean out your car window to collect it, the mail falls mere inches, so you don't even have to open your car door and reach all the way down to the street!



Above: The view out the window above my kitchen sink. Ahh, the joy of sitting on the deck, sipping a nice, cool drink.....only about six more months until such a thing will be a reality!



Above: The view out our back door. The rest of the deck, the back yard, and the pond behind our property. What's that? You can't quite make it out? Not even the birdbath by the back gate? All obliterated by a pile of white stuff in the pitch blackness that heralds 6pm here in the winter? *sigh* Exactly.

Yeah, brrrrrrrrr.

*Oh, and by the way, just to be clear, I'm totally kidding about Australia. I'm positively chartreuse with envy that Givinya and all the other citizens actually get to live there, and fervently hope and dream that someday, Down Under will be a destination the Smith family visits. And as far as Aussie couture is concerned, I also ought to mention that Kiddo is wholly obsessed with Bindi Irwin - aka "Bindi the Jungle Girl" -



and frequently requests that I style her hair just like Bindi's, please Mommy!, which I do by braiding it when it is wet, letting it dry, and then combing out. I refuse to ever buy a crimping iron, unless I'm suddenly guest starring on Lost and get flashed back to the 1980s when such purchases were acceptable.

And honestly, even if the majority of Australia was like this.........



That'd be a total hoot, so completely fine by me! I know, I know, only certain bits of the Outback are that exciting, I know... Still, Givinya does assure me that there are parts of her amazing country that do have the dangling koalas and hopping all over the place roos, so that's definitely cool enough by me!

(And I'm totally sure that Givinya is just dying to come 'round the globe to upstate NY now that she's seen what our lovely weather this time of year is like, right? Right?)

10 comments:

Givinya De Elba said...

Oh wow, thankyou! A post for me! I loved your pics, made me feel a little cooler.

Now tell me ... why do you have a GIANT wedding cake on the table on your deck? Hang on, no, wait, that coulnd't be ... ooh. Snow. Wow.

Unknown said...

its a frozen tundra here too!!! its supposed to warm up to the forties this weekend... woohoo.. heat wave!!!!!

Hippomanic Jen said...

Found you via Givinyas blog. It's always interesting to get an insight into how the rest of the world views Australia - but right now I'm so envious of the smooth banks of snow that I can't concentrate on that part of your post!

Unknown said...

I am somewhere between the two extremes- one day t-shirts the next, gloves and scarves.

At the moment, Australia is looking way better.

Gretchen said...

Aw, girlfriend, I know that the braiding thing is easy, but you should TOTALLY scour the Goodwill shops to find a crimping iron. Just for the fun of it. Just because you know no one else will want them so it will be cheap cheap cheap. Seriously, like a dollar or something. Kiddo would SO love it.

Brandy said...

I know you wrote this amazing post but all I can think is...who's the hottie after the X Men guy???

Dropping in to say HI! from SITS WW!

Debbie said...

Why can't we live there half the year and then here the other half?

Unknown said...

LOL...loved the pics with the captions to cute and OMGosh look at all that snow!!!!

Cristin said...

We're enjoying Arctic weather here too... I could use some Hugh to warm me up...

WheresMyAngels said...

My friend Ned from Australia always told me that people didn't talk like Steve Erwin did. But I watched some footage about the fire yesterday and the man they interviewed talked just like Steve.