Usually I don’t write too much about the weather because, well, isn’t weather the default setting in most conversations?

“Hi, Bill.” “Hey, Sal.” (VERY LONG AWKWARD PAUSE). “Great weather. Eh, Bill?”

BUT, maybe I should relax. I mean, weather is the one thing that ALL of us in a particular place have in common. And, our weather today–as it is during most days here in January–is BEAUTIFUL.

So, for your information and edification, here are the temperatures in New Orleans and some other places in the U.S. right now:

New Orleans: 71

Boston: 39, Chicago: 20 (unseasonably warm, I’m told), Seattle: 46, Atlanta: 54, New York: 37, Omaha: 18 (brittle), Minneapolis: 10 (the temperature at which dry hair freezes, I believe), Indianapolis: 21, St. Louis: 32, San Francisco: 50, Cincinatti: 24, Louisville: 28, Nashville: 38, Des Moines: 22.

Our weather from September to May is the best in the country, in my opinion. We do not shut down during the winter–we get out and go to restaurants and festivals and crawfish boils and Mardi Gras parades. Heck, there are people at my fitness club in suburban New Orleans SWIMMING OUTSIDE AS I TYPE THIS. There is nothing like living it to the fullest year-round like we do here in scenic Southern Louisiana.