THE OL' WINTER'S TOO DAMN LONG BLUES!!

From dictionary.com-"Melancholy-[mel-uhn-kol-ee]-noun, plural-mel-an-chol-ies, adjective- 1.) a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression. 2.) sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. 3.) the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression." Or as we laymen refer to it..."Sick of Bloody Winter!!" I'm not sure about the whole "Black Bile" thing but I know a fair bit about...whadyacallit?...you know....uh...that other word for melancholy....oh, yeah...GRUMPY!! What with our crappy weather lately how can you not be? Grumpy, that is.

Here's another word for you from the same source: "Moody-[mu-de-ee] adj.,-ier, -iest. 1.) Given to frequent changes of mood; temperamental. 2.) subject to periods of depression; sulky. 3.) Expressive of a mood, especially a sullen or gloomy mood."

"Frequent changes of mood", eh? Could it be....MOTHER NATURE... we're talking about here? Sound familiar? Do you think she's going through some sorta life changes or something? My question is, what, exactly, is itching her deriere? Huh? Can we move on now? Have you been miserable long enough? Snap out of it already!

The worst thing about "melancholy", and "grumpy" and "moody" is that they are very contagious and they love company. A bad mood will spread through your family or your work place faster than a cold virus at a day care centre. And it's almost twice as hard to get rid of.

I think there might be as many words in the English language describing melancholy as there are Eskimo words describing snow, e.g.-tempermental, dour, gloomy, blue, glum, morose, saturnine...saturnine?...whaterver... sour, sulky, sullen, surly, unhappy... It can be downright depressing knowing how many words there are for depression.

I knew I had picked up a severe case of the Gloom n' Doom virus from that tempermental ol' crow Mother Nature and in an effort to help shake off the blues the wife and I thought we'd invite some friends on a trip to Regina for some virtual golf at The First Tee Indoor Golf Center. Their website states:"The First Tee's ten simulators provide the opportunity to keep your swing grooved for the summer months, (provided summer actually comes). A choice of 68 world-class golf courses and 30 formats of play lets you practice driving, chipping, putting, and sand play. Eighteen courses played by the PGA Tour, the European Tour, and the Australian Tour are at your fingertips." . Golfing, despite the unusually cold weather and the January looking April, sounded to us like it was just what the doctor had ordered for a bit of blues busting.

But, of course, Mother Nature says, "Not so fast, there, Used To Be Young Man, I'm not done throwing winter at you just yet" and with a distinctive "Bwahahaha" tone in her wind she proceeded to mess up the highways for the umpteenth time this winter and made the roads nearly impassible. Nearly, I said. Should we have been out there on the highway? In a word...no. Were we? In another word...yes. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that, and judging from all of the traffic on the road that day we weren't the only fools employing that philosophy.

Our friends were smarter, or less lucky than we were, as we had travelled up on the Friday during the nasty weather while they were going to travel on Saturday but the "travel not recommended" advisory kept them at home. Nonetheless, our youngest daughter, and golf fanatic, too, tagged along and we enjoyed some indoor golfing fun.

This indoor, virtual golf was new to us but we noticed some similarities to the real thing right off the bat. The ball will do what the ball is wont to do when it is wont to do it regardless of it being on a fake or a real golf course but the weather was fantastic inside and nobody lost a ball all day! At a very affordable price and knowing that we won't be seeing any real grass anytime soon I highly recommend a visit to First Tee Golf to any golfer and I guess only time will tell whether our little golf breakaway had the desired effect of staving off the deepening of this melancholic winter hating mood or not.

"Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach,"-Sydney Smith (1771-1845).