20 Ways a Minnesota Winter Equals an Arizona Summer

Dear reader, it suites to compare that if you find yourself in the Great North braving winter or in Phoenix's sweltering summer, you'll surely relate to these parallels.
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Hey, you in the North!

You've had some wicked cold temps this year... and early. Just wanted you to know that we in sunny, balmy Arizona haven't forgotten about you. (How could we, when half of your population has moved in next door?)

Sure, our days are packed with hikes and parks and bike rides and outdoor runs... but we still have the brain-space to send you our warmest wishes.

We also know all too well that the pendulum will soon swing the other way. In a blink, we will be sweating in our sleep (you think I kid), while you are enjoying your Lush, Green Outsideness.

So, dear reader, it suites to compare that if you find yourself in the Great North braving winter or in Phoenix's sweltering summer, you'll surely relate to these parallels.

2015-01-12-AZvsMN.jpg

1. Your utility bills are unbelievably astronomically fourletterwordworthily high.

2. You duck your head and dart quick-as-lightening from your car to the nearest building. Any building.

3. You dare not seat your toddler in a shopping cart that has spent more than four consecutive minutes outside.

4. Two words: Cabin Fever. "If only we could go to a park!"

5. Two more words: Weight Gain. For them, it's baked goods and cocoa; for us, it's beer and ice cream. But the outcome is the same.

6. You open wide the vents and run your car for 15 minutes before entering.

7. It's four months long, if you're lucky.

8. You long for 50 degrees.

9. Anyone who can leave town, does, making your neighborhood a veritable ghost town.

10. Standing in a parking lot, buckling your child into his car seat becomes the single most miserable physical experience of both of your lives.

11. You go to great lengths to park under some kind of structure/awning/sizable vegetation.

12. It takes ffffoooorrrreeevvvveerrrrr to leave the house. If it isn't coats, mittens, socks and boots, it's sunblock applied, water bottles filled, hats secured and more sunblock applied because maybe your mom is an oncology nurse and you have red hair and therefore boast zero tanability. (Or is that just at our house?)

13. You find yourself lingering near heat- or cold-producing appliances.

14. Anything with a drive through is deemed "gourmet."

15. You wouldn't be caught dead outside without shoes. Or if you were caught, you would probably be dead.

16. Some of the most harrowing images you can conjure involve having car trouble and no cell service.

17. The presiding topics of conversation become anticipated travel plans, recently embarked upon travel excursions, and dreams of some-day travel ventures.

18. The community motto becomes "Why Is It, Again, That We Live Here?"

19. In merely 72 hours, you exhaust any and all possible indoor entertainment options for kids.

20. You stop checking the weather forecast, realizing it's only going to be "VERY HOT" or "VERY COLD."

*****

These being said, we in Arizona might have a leg up.

"Why," you ask?

Because one fact remains (say it with me!):

You can't shovel sunshine!

*****

*This post is dedicated to all of my beloved MN friends. You haven't unfriended me though I may post with nauseating frequency scads of gorgeous Arizona winter weather Facebook photos. Soon and very soon I shall suffer in kind as my feed will be filled daily with images of your lakes and your gardens and your beauty. Surely on that day, I will declare, "I have tasted my own medicine, and it is bitter." But not today, because it's still January!

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