If there's anything around here that can push the war out of the headlines, it's the weather. Here it is April 8 and we have a couple of inches of new snow on the ground, with the threat of more tomorrow. This winter has been way too long and too cold from the get-go, and it doesn't seem to want to end. This is the sort of thing that makes one question why you live in Massachusetts, especially if you moved here from somewhere else like I did. Now of course I moved here from Chicago, where it can be bitter cold and snow heavily also, although I still say we never got as much snow in Chicago as we do here. But Chicago outdoes Boston on cold weather. This year still wasn't as bad as that one year in the mid-90's where it would snow, then drop below zero for 10 days straight, such that only the snow on the bottom would melt on the roof and seep into the windows and doors, then freeze again. That was lovely. Amazingly, for the amount of snow we had this winter, they never cancelled school, and I was never really stuck out in it. In previous years I would always fret over buying tickets to something during the winter, then being stuck trying to get there or get home through a blizzard, but this year I probably went to more winter-time concerts than ever, including three days in New York, and the weather was never really a factor. Just lucky, I guess.