Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful

I’m writing early today. The temperature was below seventy this morning. Hell, it was below sixty. I’ve been begging for this. I could do without the overcast and drizzle, but I’m happy that I’m not working up a sweat by standing still. It’s cool and even with the wind blowing “cold” is not a word I would use. I’m in a very small minority in Jacksonville. People here seem to think it’s either the beginning of a new ice age or the end of days. I pass a Catholic church on the way to my office, and I saw people lighting candles and weeping to the priest about the sun going out – in Latin. It happens every year and it always shocks me how badly people freak out the first time it’s too cold to wear flip-flops. It’s fifty-five degrees outside, and I swear to sweet wounded Jesus himself that I saw people – meaning more than one person – in overcoats, gloves, boots, and scarves. I saw a woman with her scarf pulled over her face like Luke Skywalker in the beginning of the Empire Strikes Back right after he escapes from the wampa. I was walking down the street in my shirtsleeves. Maybe I’m not quite a full-blooded Floridian even though I’ve been here for twenty-eight years. My wife and mother-in-law are full-blooded Floridians. CJG told me I needed to put on a coat on my way out the door, and I’m sure that MJ will be looking to set something on fire as soon as she gets home. I think it’s funny that I act big and bad with the weather in the fifties, ten degrees colder and I’ll be the first in line at The Church of the Immaculate Conception.

Pater noster qui es in coelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum,
fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in coelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
et ne nos inducas in tentationem
sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.


Ave, Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum.
Benedícta tu in mulieribus,
et benedíctus fructus ventris tui,
Iesus.
Sancta María, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostræ.
Amen.

You can never be too ready. If it drops below forty I’m breaking out the Hebrew and the Aramaic.