Snow, rain, slush, mess

Yesterday brought us an ugly mixture of snow, rain, freezing rain and slush, making driving very difficult and slippery. My day started out with a hard fall in my driveway - no damage done, fortunately - and ended with a messy, slushy and slippery drive home from work. Everything was cancelled last night, it seemed, including our Kent Civil War Society meeting. I was grateful not to have to go back out later in the evening as the weather was just too ugly and messy to bother with, so I hunkered down for a nice cozy evening home in my toasty little apartment. Craving some kind of comfort food, I cooked up a can of organic lentil vegetable soup that was among the goodies I got for Christmas from my mom. It was perfect - hearty, filling and healthy - for a cold winter night. I had some nice organic stoneground crackers with dinner that were also part of my "organic goody basket" that I got for Christmas. Who could have asked for a better dinner on a cold, nasty winter night? This is the kind of thing that I like to eat on cold winter nights - good hearty comfort food. I hope it doesn't put too much weight on me, but I've read that this is a natural evolutionary process that is programmed into us - to gain weight during the colder months to both keep us warm and to protect us from what were the lean times for our hunter-gatherer forebears. So I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad about putting on a few pounds during these colder months of the year. I can consider it insulation to keep me warm in this ugly, dreary season. Wanting to consume heavier comfort food is, then, something I should not feel so guilty about because if we listen to our bodies, they tell us what they want and when.

OBAMANIA?
Barack Obama pulled out stunning victories last night in what the media billed as the "Potomac Primaries" (once again, they're at work inventing clever names for things that make for nice sound bytes....). Now he is the clear front runner and ol' Hill is in trouble. Ohio's primary is coming up on March 4th and our state is considered to be a big prize in the primary season because no President makes it to the White House without winning Ohio. Former Senator John Glenn and Governor Ted Strickland have endorsed Hillary, which are big endorsements from such mainstream Dems, but I think that Obama still has a good chance here in Ohio to at least prevail in the more liberal areas like NE Ohio. In the more conservative southern half of the state, Hillary will doubtless win a lot of votes because she does lean more right than Obama. McCain will either tank here or do very well, depending on how well he can turn out the conservative base. There are still a lot of hardcore conservatives, Bible belters, primarily, who won't support McCain because of his maverick record on certain social issues. He also once spurned the Religious Right, although now he's doing his best to cozy up to them. So our primary in March should be a fascinating contest to watch, whether you're Democrat or Republican. It certainly should be something to look forward to. I just hope that the weather holds, because if there is one thing that voters are in this part of the country where we have real winters, it's largely fair weather voters who will stay home even if it rains. Democrats depend on good weather for good turnouts. Republicans don't seem to mind what the weather's doing, they turn out in droves regardless. That's one thing they have over us - devotion to voting regardless of what Mother Nature is dishing out, and that's something that Democrats could do well to learn from their Republican counterparts if they hope to win bigger Congressional majorities and the White House this fall.