The longest short month......

One of the lesser recurring themes in the strip is that as a character ages, he or she slowly loses the enthusiasm he or she once had for the seemingly interminable Canadian winter. We began the strip with Elly resenting being housebound with children underfoot and John not really all that fond of having to shovel out the car and driveway and neither of them especially sympathetic to the glee the kids felt when contemplating playing in the snow.

The reason that I mention this is that as the Middle Years progress, we're going to see the same Mike and Lizzie who couldn't wait to play in the snow start to resent endless shoveling, being hectored about dressing in the ultra-dorky winter clothes Mom wants them to wear, slush, discomfort and above all, the small child who fooled all of them serving as a reminder of how Spring takes a long time to take hold in this, my home and native land.

What this means is that as I type this, the adult Mike and Liz that the curtain fell on nearly seven years ago join their parents in wondering why if February is so short, why it always feels so much longer than a warmer thirty-one day month. In this, they're like most of us who have to deal with freezing rain and windchill advisories on a regular basis.