In Like a Lion

This is what it looks like in Brooklyn today:

You’ll have to forgive the graininess, but I’m not venturing out – I know you can’t tell, but it’s bucketing down with snow, blizzard-style. When I moved myself and my boyfriend RP to New York for my job, it was scenes like the above that I had in mind, climate-wise. Real East Coast seasons! (Not like in California, where we were living at the time.) Real winters with snow that I love!! (Not like London, where we lived before California.)

What I forgot was the fact that winter is a whole season, not just a nice week of snow around Christmas (or March…). This winter has been a big smack in the head for me – so reminder to Self: Jessica, you do not like winter. It is dark and freezing and oppressive and forces you to wear this hideous thing every day:

What you like, Jessica, is going away somewhere cold for a week to ooh and aah at the pretty snowy landscape, to stay inside and drink hot chocolate, and then to return to temperate climes. Duly noted.

Fortunately, this is a temporary problem; not only will this probably be the last gasp of this frigid season, but RP and I are moving to Kunming (the capital city of Yunnan province in southwest China) in a few months.

And that’s what this blog is all about.