Would it be so freaking hard for someone to invent heated sock drawers? Or for homebuilders to run a heat duct to the closet, for God’s sake? Here we are, in the bleak midwinter, paying the utility co. our hard-earned money to keep toasty (if the Green Movement’s 68 degrees is your idea of toasty), and you go to get dressed and you grab a shirt from your unheated closet and, boom! (as John Madden would say), you’ve a very localized cold front hugging you. Then boom! again, as you pull on individual foot-coolers for socks, from your drawer. How does heat pervade an entire room, but not get into a drawer? You could store beers in some closets – usually located (by those same savvy builders) on an outside wall on the shady side of the building. If one were to store condoms in these dressers-turned-bedroom-coolers, we’d either see an explosion in pregnancies (or STDs) or we’d have a bunch of people walking around totally frustrated.

Speaking of warmer (and you wondered how I was going to segue into small talk about the ripping-good city life in Downtown Baltimore (ye of little faith), Spring will be here soon, so we need to turn our thoughts to how alive (and less clothed) our fair city will be in a few short months! Sitting outside having a beer (one, no more than six), lunching in the open air… actually requesting a window seat at your favorite restaurant. Can you envision it?

In the meanwhile, we’ve got March to get through, and part of April…so, what to do? Whatever the hell you want to do! The only difference is that, right now, you may need to put on your coat! And there are advantages for making an expedition out into the city now (and not waiting for the warmer weather): the tourists are coming! Ahhhh! Let the suburbanites settle into their McMansions and ranchers and ordered little same-houses in their “communities,” while you have your run of the city! Wanna OWN Harbor East or Fells Point, grab your posse and hit the ground running! The din is lessened, the lines are shorter, the food arrives sooner…all in making yet another downtown Baltimore experience memorable (depending on how many beers you quaff). Then, Monday morning, one of your peeps can email everyone the pix they took from their cell phone. Giving you a warm feeling inside – that might just warm up your arctic sock-covered toes.