Remember the Halloween Blizzard of '94?

If you do, I guarantee you are from the Midwest. Out in California, I am far from the Midwest this week. It is beautiful in a strange, surreal way. It is odd to me, this balmy, breezy, wondrous land of palm trees and parks, perfect temperatures, blue skies, and even bluer ocean. Growing up in Illinois the landscape was flat, flat, flat. In fact, my hometown is so flat that the hill we sled on in the winter is man made. So this mysterious land of mountains and ocean, beautiful skies, great temperatures, a laid back attitude, wine and great food to boot is unreal to me.

I wonder why my parents did not take me to this strange place before. But then I think it through more carefully. I distinctly remember trick or treating through the Halloween blizzard of 1994. My beautiful fairy princess outfit had to be abandoned as the temperatures receded and the sleet turned to snow, building up on the sidewalk as jack-o-lanterns put their earmuffs on. It got so cold I had to focus on a new, last-minute costume constructed with my winter jacket, hat and gloves as the center piece. Having to resort to my ingenuity, I decided to be a feather-duster and wear black snow pants with a white sheet wrapped around my bulky winter jacket. I would carry a feather duster with me, just to help people connect the dots, you know.

And off we went, trick or treating through the snow. My parents encouraged this behavior, going out in the frigid temperatures, modifying Halloween costumes as needed to fit the weather. They taught me this was "normal." As I grew older, it gave me a sense of pride. "Yeah, I trick or treated through the Halloween blizzard of '94," or "The last ice storm, man, we stayed in our house without heat for three days." These various weather-related situations we Midwesterners triumphed over became a badge of honor, one we held close to our hearts. We were much too modest to wear our pride on our sleeves. But it would creep up in conversation from time to time.

Now that I am in California, a place my parents never took me as a child, I see why. If they had taken me here in, say, 1993, by the time the Halloween blizzard of '94 took place I would have known there was a warm place in the USA that we could live. A place where trick or treating never involved blizzards. No, instead I was misguided and led to believe that warm places were far, far away and most often in foreign countries. I look back at our family vacations and interestingly most of them were to places further north than Illinois. Wisconsin, check. Minnesota, check. Canada, check. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire... check, check, check. Yes, I see it now, it was all a grand conspiracy to make sure I didn't realize I was being cheated out of blizzard-free Halloweens.

The fortunate thing is, despite going to college in Minneapolis, I did manage to break through the frost, sleet and snow long enough to discover a city with a more moderate climate. Sure, summers can be sweltering but call me from the Midwest in January. Then we'll talk. I guarantee the weather in DC will be in the 40s or 50s. If there is snow, or even the threat of snow, I guarantee I'll have a snow day. And I guarantee that if you are from the Midwest, you will look down on me for taking that snow day. You will add a badge of honor to your own mental count, thinking "Yeah, I drove to work through the great snowstorm of 2009."