So far this year, January has featured great weather as we have enjoyed above average temps every day but one this month. Yesterday marked a second consecutive day of 70+ temps. Here it was January 12th and folks were coming into Buzzy’s wearing shorts and tee shirts. I even had the front door open for awhile. The forecast ahead for the week calls for even more nice, “springlike” weather.
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| https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/ |
I like it personally of course but business-wise I really like it because when the weather is nice people go out. When the weather is not so nice, people are a little like the dog who goes to the door, looks outside and says “Screw that I’m not going out there.” During the spring and summer I will start to check out the coming weekend weather forecast around Wednesday and most times I can pretty much tell what kind of weekend I’m going to have in the Store. When it’s nice out, business is good; not so nice, it’s not so good.
On the subject of weather conditions and going places, I found this funny Mark Twain story. (Mark is most often credited with the “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes” and “Everybody talks about the weather….” quotes.) He wrote the following note to his wife Olivia after she had to cancel a trip to visit him due to a blizzard:
“And so, after all my labor and persuasion to get you to at last promise to take a week’s holiday and go off with me on a lark, this is what Providence has gone and done about it. It does seem to me the oddest thing–the way Providence manages. A mere simple request to you to stay at home would have been entirely sufficient; but no, that is not big enough, picturesque enough–a blizzard’s the idea; pour down all the snow in stock, turn loose all the winds, bring a whole continent to a stand-still: that is Providence’s idea of the correct way to trump a person’s trick. If I had known it was going to make all this trouble and cost all these millions, I never would have said anything about your going. Now in the light of this revelation of the methods of Providence, consider Noah’s flood–I wish I knew the real reason for playing that cataclysm on the public: likely enough, somebody who liked dry weather wanted to take a walk. That is probably the whole thing–and nothing more to it.” – Letter to Olivia Clemens, March 10, 1888 (reprinted from click here.)
The pessimist in me says that we are going to eventually pay for all this nice January winter weather. February can be a cruel mistress. Speaking of which, here is another Twain quote that may or not be talking about mistresses:
When I went looking for the Beatles’ Good Day Sunshine I stumbled upon this Sonny and Cher take on it. Warning – it’s on the lame side, but still is worth watching just because of her. (Think Sonny could get away with calling her an Indian Sphinx and Sitting Stone (5:45) nowadays?)