"My Fair Weather Lady"

That's what George Bernard Shaw could have penned had he dabbled in meteorology along with his award-winning plays (could NOT come up with something cute-sie for 'Pygmalion'...!). More on Mr. Shaw in a moment.

Looks like we've got a freight train of cold heading our way by next weekend, not unlike the hit we took two weeks ago...and a Gulf system poised to run up the coast and be here in the Carolinas Thursday ahead of the cold.

It's not a classic set-up for a wintry scenario...for that you'd prefer to have a 'low' kick out of the southern Rockies into TX and have it make a slow track near the Gulf coast and gentle curve NE in GA. This week's puppy will start further south and run straight up the Atlantic coast fairly quickly.

There looks to be a pretty strong area of high pressure that will be over NY then, which would feed cold air in from the NE and build a nice cold wedge in the Piedmont...with the charging Arctic air poised in the northern Plains states to rush in.

Ah, but there is the timing of it all...most most models (as well as the 'official' forecast) say only cold rain for us, with snow and snow-mix for the mountains (mainly from upslope flow from the northwest). But this morning, as I finish off my coffee at home, my one little favored model has snow in the northern Piedmont Thursday, or at least a rain-snow mix. Could make things a bit interesting for what is an otherwise quiet but cooler forecast.

(We now return to our regularly scheduled non-weather blog, that has nothing to do with the above weather scenario except that I started with a 'play' on words from "My Fair Lady"...)

I've always remembered and held dear a quote of Shaw's that rings of great truth:

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

In general, people don't like to have their beliefs and world visions rocked, and they like to let it be known and heard. Just read the Charlotte Observer's editorial page on almost any given day and you'll see how widespread chest-thumping is even down to simple, trite levels. And then some.

And so I got poking around for more of his quotes, which I found of interest and worthy of mulling...I'll call 'em mulling 'spices'. Enjoy.

Quotes from George Bernard Shaw:

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic."

"Hell is full of musical amateurs."

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."

"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion."

"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."

"When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity."

"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and , if they can't find them, make them."

"This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege - my *privilege* to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."