Gloomiest November on Record

Well, one of them anyway according to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). Sunlight was limited to 35 minutes a day for the entire month, giving Stockholm only 17.5 hours of sunlight for the entire month. Considerably lower than the than the average for the month at 54 hours.

Nobody seems to like it. When you go anywhere, it seems to be all people want to discuss. People are noticeably more cranky. Horns are beeping much more, fuses seem shorter and characteristically mellow Swedes are bit more on edge. I saw a runner out yesterday at about 4 pm with a headlight on his head. Chalk one up for the innovative. Flights to Thailand are astronomical and I do think the Swedes have single handedly driven up the prices.

Some Swedes use light therapy to try to ward off SAD, others use the bottle. Supposedly, as a whole Swedes consume copious amounts of alcohol during these bleaker months. Which would seem counterintuitive to me. Drunk and in the dark would only lead to be hung over and dark. Or in my case, doing stupid things you only remember half of and dark.

Living in Phoenix, I had forgotten what winter, in general, does to the skin tones of those around you. You typically do not notice that everyone has a vampire like bluish tinge to their skin until you return from vacation in a warm climate. You tend to get off the plane in your new South Florida tan and look around like you have walked into a scene of Night of the Living Dead.

My kids who normally have healthy tanned glows to their olive skin tone have taken on a greenish, greyish hue and I am sure I am sporting the translucently sallow tone I long ago left behind with New York winters. My son's blonde hair has turned an ashey brown. Thanks to the Twilight movies, looking dead is fashionable.

Unfashionable though is Vitamin D deficiency. Somehow, I manage to pick the year to go sunless when Vitamin D is the cure all health regimen. I couldn't have picked the oat bran craze year or the year for Alpha Lipoic Acid. I timed that one wrong it seems. Still and all, the dark does not really bother me. It is already cold, what does it matter if it's dark too?