Whether the weather

This may not be a shocking revelation but... the weather in Philadelphia is different than it is in Dallas.

It snows here. 

Quite a lot, in fact. 

It's also very cold. Bundling up is important, especially if you walk to work like I do. 

How is this a real thing??

But it does give you an excuse to wear fun hats. 

And you can pretend to be all hipster or whatever with your head gear. Except for my hair is clean. 

The cold and the snow are pretty, and not bad in the grand scheme of things. 

At least, it makes everything look much more interesting. 

And snow is better than ice, which unfortunately inevitably follows. Then, you fall on your butt in your way to the ATM and have to turn around and go to a closer one but get charged a $2.50 fee and the bank won't take it away and your butt and hip are bruised and you vow to plan your day around the weather much better next time. Stupid ice. 

But then it just goes and snows again! Without warning! More than anyone predicted! 

Real cool, snow. 

Another thing about the cold and/or snow is that when you go outside, you have to be bundled up, as above. Or else your eyeballs will freeze out of your face. But then. You go inside and start to sweat like you're walking through the Walmart parking lot in Texas in August. You can't wait to take off all your layers but you die of heat exhaustion or get so sweaty your professional clothes are not so crisp before you get layers 1-4 off to even get to the layers beneath. 

Which, although frustrating for a minute, is not so bad if you're going somewhere and staying there for a whole, like work. 

But what about if you're running errands or going shopping for the day? You have three choices:

1. Dress warmly (gloves, ear warmer, scarf included) and be fine and dandy while outside but swelter inside because you can't just unlayer everything while you're walking through a store. Because for some reason stores believe they need to fight the chill outside with 76 degrees of heat blasting inside. WHY. 

2. Dress minimally and freeze and be miserable outside and get a cold headache from your ears being cold and your hands get stiff and your eyes water and you hate your life decisions. But when you get inside, you're quite comfortable. 

3. Dress somewhat warmly, somewhere in between. And be miserably cold outside and miserably hot inside. YOU CANNOT WIN. 

But there are other kinds of weather, at least.

Freaking insanely cold, but dry.

Or foggy enough that good ol' William Penn is hidden in the clouds. 

Or partly cloudy. 

Or, which happens almost as much as it snows, rainy rainy rainy. And they tell me it isn't the rainy season yet. So I have that to look forward to. 

But then, the sun will come out and be glorious sometimes and make you forgive this city for being cold and snowy and rainy and appreciate its beauty again. 

At least, until the next snow. Which is probably going to be tomorrow, whether the weather channel thinks it or not. 

Thanks, Philadelphia.