So Cold the Flashers Stayed Zipped

But if you try sometimes well you just might find

SO Cold!

How cold was it this week in my part of the world? So cold the flashers were describing themselves.So cold the posts of your earrings were turning your ears into something resembling two frozen apricots stuck to the side of your head. It was so cold it the fillings in your teeth stabbed you with an iron pain the second you opened your mouth. So cold the tiny hairs in your nose grew tiny icicles.I didn’t leave the house for a full 36 hours during the worst of it.I needed to buy milk. “Forget the milk,” David said. I needed to go to the Apple store and have one of those nice One-to-One sessions with my new Mac. “Forget the Apple store!” I told myself and rescheduled for next week.I needed to work out at the Y, which sits on a windy hilltop 100 yards from where I would have to park my car. “The heck with the Y for now," I also thought and went to the third floor and made myself get on that treadmill that Dave's pal Frank talked him into buying 15 years ago.Being inside did have a few good effects: I cleaned. I sorted stuff. I made and hung new curtains for the living room windows which up until now looked like a face with no eyebrows.See? This is Before: Pretty blah, right?And this is After: pop!Anyway ....We could only bear to stay downstairs until around 4pm when everything on that floor grows arctic. (It’s an old house, what can I say, with a three-story hall that carries the heat RIGHT out through the roof.)We ate supper every night on the bed and were under the covers by 7:00.It actually wasn’t a bad week, take it all around, and today they say the temperatures will moderate.Sigh. I hope so. Tell you the truth my ears are still kind of a funny color.But at least the spider webs over the windows are gone.And running on the treadmill was sort of OK but the truth is I can't wait to get back up on that window hilltop for Zumba's particular brand of torture

Flashers Beware

Woo! So cold the flashers are describing themselves today and what did I do but lose my nice old strangling gloves fine as a second skin which I wear from October to April in these chilly climes.  Gonna be plenty cold the next few days with that wind out of Canada and here we are all are rushing to and for when we should be home under the covers with a warm dog. (Contest Question One: Name that singing group.) And here’s another question for ya and a wonderfully ugly Christmas tree ornament from my special collection of What Was I Thinking Seasonal Ornaments to any and all who get it right. What is THIS a picture of below? (Hint: I took it three hours ago out in my driveway.) undoctored photo too!

Frozen Pees

It's been so cold here the flashers are describing themselves, ha-ha old joke but man it's been cold. 17 below zero at the lake yesterday where we foolishly went thinking 'Oh we’ll just take a spin up to our summer place and check on things.' FLED IN FEAR 24 hours later, not just because of the cold but because of this brand new snowstorm bearing down on us. Packed up the cats and the cooler and drove home fast as we could last night, the storm’s wet breath cold upon our necks.

When I was a high school teacher on study hall duty, a kid taking Latin sat right in front of my big desk and I'd look at his book sometimes - to see how much I remembered of that knuckly old language and admire the prints of Roman statues with their noses all rubbed off.

Once though, he came in with a book called Voyage to the Top of the World or some such name about this dogsled bunch up by the North Pole trying to carry on in all that cold. It was kind of a babyish book but I loved it,  especially the parts where they’d pee into the air, and their pee would freeze into sticks which they’d then use to repair broken parts of the sleds.

Just kinda gets you thinkin’ huh? Weatherman gives ya lemons, make lemonade. Or at least some novelty swizzle sticks to serve in the drinks of your enemies. :-)