self-righteousness: a full circle

florida snowbirds have a charming way of letting more permanent northerners know how they feel about cold and snow.

"OH. MY. GOD. you're going back to chicago TODAY? have you HEARD how cold it is up there???"
"well, guys, it's going to get cold here too this week... tomorrow's high is only 75."
"are you SURE you don't want to stay another night? we heard it's cold up there."
etc.

it *was* cold. but mb and i got back to our apartment and settled in pretty quickly, curling up on the couch under blankets with homemade soup on the stove, furry slippers on our feet, laundry in the dryer, glasses of wine in our hands, and movie on tv. these are the moments you can't enjoy as much when it's 80 degrees outside. we were feeling pretty good about our temperate-climate lifestyle...

i could take this story two ways:

a) don't point fingers about other people's self-righteousness because it goes both ways.

but that's boring and a little annoying.

b) everyone should be proud of their decisions. thanks to mb's new fancy mba training, we're taking this to a new level: we present to you the household awesomeness index (HAI?) , kind of like the s&p, that tracks different areas of awesomeness and provides us with a numerical assessment of just how self-righteous we should feel for a given day. for example:

coziness: 5 pts
productivity: 5 pts
goodness of external events: 5 pts
yumminess: 5 pts
adaptation to above: 20 pts

so, for example, being in florida probably scores pretty high in coziness, yumminess, and goodness of external events: after walking barefoot in the sand (cozy=4), i had the most amazing blackened scallops and sweet potato fries (yummy=5), accompanied by a rum-tastic tropical drink that came for free thanks to the fact that my almost-brother-in-law was working at the bar that night (goodness of external events=5).

but returning to chicago has its merits. getting household errands done while drinking and curling up on the couch scores points for yummy, cozy AND productive, plus scores points for adaptation: extra credit for good things that happen as a result of less desirable things (such as wind chill). our friends who traveled with us scored low on coziness and productivity in their return to the midwest, seeing as they had to drive back to wisconsin that afternoon but first needed to jump-start their car in the remote parking lot at midway, and then had a long drive home since the direct route to their hometown was closed for the third time in three weeks (this time from a fuel tank overturned on a highway ice slick). so that scores low on goodness of external events. but they score big in yummy and adaptation, by taking the opportunity to grab dinner at a favorite restaurant/microbrewery along the longer way home.

you'll notice that the household awesomeness index is heavily weighted toward adaptation. essentially, as long as you don't sulk, you're having an awesome day and should feel good about yourself.

how's your awesomeness today?