Hoping for spring amid entertainment of winter skirmishes

Snow. Cold. Endless gray. To be followed, no doubt by a baby boomlet come September and October.

Such is the usual human response to a harsh, it's-easier- to-stay-home winter. Not being of boomlet-producing age any longer, however, we oldsters find other ways to amuse ourselves or engage our significant others.

At my house we engage in the art of the siege, interrupted by the occasional overt skirmish, to keep us from nodding off when the sun goes down. On those rare days we can actually see it.

My husband turns the thermostat down to 67, even lower if he's feeling cranky. Though he does it furtively, my nose knows. When it begins to chill, I wander past the thermostat surreptitiously, kicking it up to the 68 or 69 that is more to my liking. We can do this for hours. Back and forth. Back and forth, while never speaking about it. It's silly, but entertaining.

Almost as silly as me tossing logs in the fireplace until I drive him to break out his shorts and T-shirts. I'm warm, but you could keep butter hard as a rock in the rest of the house when the fire shuts down the furnace.

Then there's the bedroom, which is where those boomlets are made in younger households -- and in those households where the bedroom is something other than a meat locker.

No matter what the temperature, the wind speed or the wind chill outside, my other half requires a window open near his head. Never mind that he bought a dual-control heated blanket in an attempt to assuage my complaints. I still must bury myself in bedding like a mummy to keep my teeth from chattering. All in the name of fresh air, you know.

When he messes with my porch, however, the skirmish escalates. My porch is where I do my smoking, reading and list-making. It's also where the cat sleeps at night, partly because she rises at an ungodly 5 a.m. and partly because I'm afraid she'd be a cat-sicle come the dawn if she tried to sleep on the bed. It's my porch, so I see no reason it ought not be warm enough for my comfort and hers. Beyond that, it takes hours to re-warm if he turns off the heat, which usually happens right after he receives a utility bill. That is tantamount to a declaration of war.

Then there's the snow blowing and shoveling. He does most of the cooking and I do most of the outside work in return. But as with leaves in the fall, we agree that there comes a moment when a one-man job becomes an "all-hands-on-deck" sort of deal. Which is when my "when we shovel matters more than if we shovel" theory of snow removal collides with his "throw some salt on it and wait a few days" approach.

These are dangerous days for relationships, after football and before baseball and the NCAA basketball tourney, aggravated by a crop of lousy movies and the omni-present winter. So we're going south for a long weekend. A self-styled marriage retreat, if you will.

I can only hope it won't be 70 degrees and sunny here, and 45 and raining there. If that happens, I'll be sorely tempted to whack him on the head with an umbrella and feed him to the sharks that so fascinate him in his winter TV mode. A new seasonal entertainment, to be sure. But counterproductive in the end. Who would feed me if he's shark bait?

And spring is bound to come. Though it seems unlikely now, it is possible that when the tulips finally raise their colorful heads, I might miss the guy who planted them.