Weather It Is (Quick Changes)

Good Evening:

There are quick changes in store for us.  However, when all is said and done it may simply be more "sound" than fury.  Temperatures several hundred meters above our mountain tops are falling into tonight, and then rising into Shabbat, and then falling into Monday, and then rising into Wednesday, and then falling into Friday.  If you're not feeling a bit of vertigo, then I am.

Both storms next week may bring periods of rain, but then again, they may not.

Why the uncertainty?  The break up of the polar vortex into spinning vortices has led to an injection of artic air energy into our mid-latitude atmospheric system, creating difficulties for global forecast models as they peer into the future.

People keep telling my wife that they heard it is going to snow. I am not really sure why they are saying this, but the same thing happened last time it snowed -- someone, somewhere, is starting rumours and like feathers on the wind they get blown here and there.

While some folks were spreading rumours, I was sitting "Shiva" for a lost sister. She was actually lost to me years ago, as she suffered some calamity while growing in my mother's womb.  There was no obvious reason why this happened or even what happened, but the result was that I was born into the world as a "make-up" baby.  So, in someway I owe my life to her lack of life -- she was alive, but she didn't have the opportunity to live.

Quite frankly, I found it strange to sit shiva for someone I really didn't know.  Yet, the people who visited (and I thank them for doing so) were quite understanding and encouraging. I went from feeling that I was committing "Shiva Fraud" to doing something meaningful for both my second sister and myself, and hopefully my parents as well.

I have to say that when I experience the kindness of my fellow citizens I really feel better about being here, and perhaps I can have more patience for those who seem to live in their own world -- whether they are cutting in front at the border control point or cutting you off on the road.  My guess is that the number of good folks far out weight the bad ones, but the acts of kindness often occur far from the public eye.

Here's hoping for better news and as someone said: my sister Nancy has been saved from further suffering.  It's true, but I wish that it would never have been.

But, then who would write this column?

Barry Lynn