Could I have spoken too soon?

I will admit, my prediction of the outbreak of spring may have seemed a bit premature, especially considering how early in the year it is, but I stand fully by it! I wasn't quite so confident this morning when I was awoken by a faint choking sound. Turns out, it was a good thing I woke up, I was the one choking.

For those of you who don't know, I have a one inch gap beneath my door. The gap is caused by, well, just outstanding craftsmanship. Another example of the quality, as though a one inch gap at the bottom wasn't enough is the construction of the hinges. The hinges on my door are actually two and one half inch nails. On the outside. Good thing the door double locks! So this gap just fits right in, it is perfect! Perfect to slide right under if you are dust, rain, a field mouse, or even the moderately skinny cat that was chasing the field mouse. For those without the ability to do the limbo, see previous sentence where I indicate that you need only be a three year old with a stick to break into my highly secured room.

Back to the choking. So I wake up to, well, me, choking. I was choking on dust. I instantly look up to my window to see what time it is, you know, by checking to see if the amazingly bright light outside my room is on. The room is slightly dim so I know that it must be after sunrise because they turn off the light at sunrise and not even high noon is as bright as that light.

So the window is dim. Oh yea, and orange. This confuses me as well so I spring up from my bed, pull open the curtains and see... orange.

Lets go back to yesterday where I said that the great thing about weather is that everyone can relate. I lied. You can't relate to this. Well, maybe you can. Go to the fabric store Get a nice piece of semi-sheer orange curtain, and wrap it about your head three or four times totally covering your eyes. Did you do it? Of course you didn't, because if you did you wouldn't be able to read the screen. If you had though you would be able to understand what the orange out my window looked like. I couldn't see more than about 15 feet. "There used to be things out there," I told myself hopefully.

In this case the orange is actually caused by a "schmal" though I am absolutely sure that isn't even romotely how you spell that word. A "schmal" is a dust storm. In the case of Iraq, those storms are orange. Everything turns orange, the sky, the sun, the horizon, your unprotected eyeballs. Everything. This morning, the "schmal" was blowing right into my room through the gap under the door.

Let me tell you, for those of you who haven't woken up choking, it isn't plesant and certainly isn't the way you want to wake up in the morning. Not good on the heart, of that I am sure. The initial shock of an orange day passed and I quickly put on my clothes and headed off to a work day filled with meetings as though nothing were out of the ordinary.

Oh, yea, and it was winter-like cold. I put on a sweater.