If you are new here, you might not know that I hate the winter.

(If you are not new here, you can roll you eyes. Again.)

I have geriatric circulation — no really, I do, although I’m sure it’s not the actual medical term for it, but it’s really a thing. My extremities are numbingly never the right temperature (or even color) and it’s impossible for me to get warm. So, I tend to stay inside during the winter months.

And, you guys, I wear flannel jammies.

One might call it, uh, hibernation. 

In fact, that’s exactly what I call it.

“I went out of the house twice this week,” I said excitedly to one of my most favorite people. “I think I’m finally coming out of hibernation.”

“Like a bear.”

“Just like a bear,” I said with a laugh.

Only now that I think about it, that’s exactly what it’s like. I feel renewed, I feel refreshed, I feel happy. It’s amazing how much my mood is lifted by a little sunshine (and the absence of hypothermia). So yes, I’m a bear. Although I’d like to think of myself as something more like, you know, Winnie The Pooh or one of those Coca-Cola bears and not, say, something ferocious or that stupid weirdly shaped Bear in the Big Blue House.

I’d take Corduroy Bear, even.

I basically cannot stop smiling.

I have taken my camera out—outside.

I have pulled out my favorite $12 sunglasses.

I have even gone to synagogue, where no fewer than 18 people asked WHY I was there and/or basically had forgotten what I look like without a Valencia filter.

I have taken my bike out, proving that riding a bike is just like riding a bike.

I have eaten Al Fresco. Our friends recently built a new house which is all very nice and pretty but it’s  their wrap-around porch—that equals the square footage of my first condo—that I’m pretty sure was built just for me. I have a feeling I will be spending most of my summer with my heiney parked right on their couch. I have already eaten at least two meals out there, eating, drinking, laughing, stargazing—

“We saw two, but at least one was 98% airplane.”

—and watching our children perform the entire Pitch Perfect movie from start to finish.

(I can do that with Annie or The Breakfast Club, but those are mildly less entertaining, methinks.)

(I hope they like rent payments in the form of photos of their kids)

Yes, you guys. This bear is out.

Officially.