Janu-wary.

I shouldn't complain about the weather, what with wildfires in Australia and mudslides in Brazil. But this is me we're talking about. Of course I will!

This is the mildest January I can remember, and I'm expecting the worst.

The conditions this month -- rain, a little snow. We've seen snow fronts schlep down here from Canada and the Great Plains and turn into cold rain somewhere over Pennsylvania or something. It's been quiet.

Too quiet.

I'm afraid that February is coming for us, whipping up a bomb cyclone of snow.

December, when it was still autumn, was considerably colder and snowier than January. I had to break out the HotHands one day when it was windy and we barely got over 20. My dogs seldom care how cold it is, but they're covered in double coats of hair. My scalp doesn't even have a single decent coat. Human beings invented central heating, not dogs. As tough as December was, though, January's been a bust.

Here's a typical scenario. We had been told last week that snow was going pay us a visit on the weekend, just has it had the previous week (when we got not even three inches here, I think). On Friday night it rained a lot. By Saturday all that was left of the previous week's snow were strips where it had piled up along the edge of roads or driveways. It looked like bad piping on the first day of Kindergarten Pastry School.

Nevertheless, there was still some treachery. It rained a lot more Saturday, temperatures dipped overnight, and we had black ice on the driveway Sunday morning -- almost in time for a reenactment of the concussion saga that ruined my life for weeks last February. But the day was mild and that went away quickly.

This January has been awful for Senior Varsity dog Tralfaz, who loves snow more than Picabo Street does. Saturday night was particularly sad. He laid down on one of those crummy strips of snow, paws around it like he was hugging it, looking up at me in the darkness. He took a little desultory nibble of snow. If I'd had my phone I would have recorded it so you could cry too, it was so sad.

I wish I could explain to him where the snow went. Science eludes his grasp. Sunday morning he was inspecting a larger floe at the end of the block, wondering why a large volume of ice appears to melt slower than the smaller volume on our property under identical conditions. Mysteries of science!

Well, that's it for January -- dry all this week. Then we enter February, when the forecast is snow. Again. But even that is of the "rain and snow and 39 degrees" variety -- nothing like what Tralfaz needs. More, of course, than I want. As you can see, I lose whether it snows or not. So what else is new?

I now know why people move to Florida. Even the threat of alligators and falling lizards and hurricanes and Florida Man himself can't keep them out.

Hey, did you know there's a town in New York's Hudson Valley named Florida? It's true! I think it was a put-on for city suckers with a poor sense of direction. "Come retire to Florida! Put down a deposit and we'll even pay your moving expenses!" And then instead of a thousand miles south, they find themselves sixty miles north, with even more snow.