DIANA REPUBLIC

I know that by writing this I sound like a spoiled brat. But that isn’t my fault; it is Bob’s fault. On our first “road trip” he took me to Maui. He also took me to Paris, Rome and Barcelona while we were dating. Granted those were business trips when he worked for an airline, but I had never been to Europe and a trip to Barcelona is a trip to Barcelona. We went to Hawaii every spring for the first five or so years we were together.

As time went on, and we became “house poor”, Hawaii moved out of our budget, but we have taken a warm spring vacation every spring for the last ten years. Sometimes it was a long weekend in Vegas and last year it was a week in Scottsdale. This year we are skipping our annual spring break. It just isn’t in the budget and while we could just go deeper in debt, which would be totally like us, we decided to be grown ups and take a pass.

And the universe has rewarded us by giving us a never-ending winter. OK, so our credit score isn’t at risk, great. My sanity is every time it snows again (like yesterday) or the temperature dips below freezing. I am really trying to be a big girl here, but the fact that the weather won’t give me a break is making it very difficult.

This is all Bob’s fault, as I may have mentioned. Before I met him I was lucky if I could finagle a Friday business trip to a warmer state where I could sleep on a friend’s couch for the weekend. He ruined me for so many things. Now I can’t sit in the cheap seats at the United Center and I take for granted that he has “a guy” at every event in the city of Chicago who can hook us up should we need hooking up. In an effort to impress me while we were dating and beyond, Bob created a monster. And because no good deed goes unpunished, I am now holding him accountable for my dangerously low vitamin D levels and whatever psychosis arises from my exposure to cold and gray weather.

To be completely truthful we are going on vacation. We are taking our second Alaskan cruise with Bob’s mom in May. It should be an amazing trip and we are fortunate to have the opportunity. But (said the spoiled brat) allow me to express my feeling about the irony of a trip to Alaska (where it is cold) after one of the coldest and longest winters that I can remember. Or maybe it only seems extra cold and extra long because I have no reason to buy suntan lotion in April this year.