Frozen

Apparently the ass end of the thermometer is about to fall off.

It’s been a pretty warm winter around here, all things considered – mostly near freezing, with occasional forays in one direction or another.  It’s been kind of disappointing, to be honest.  Winter should be winter.  If I wanted to live in an eternal March I’d move somewhere else.

Though I could live quite happily in an extended November, now that I think of it.  I may retire to Scotland for the weather.

But this week we have had two significant snowstorms – significant being defined as “worth clearing the driveway for.”  The over/under on shoveling in Wisconsin is 2.75 inches, and both storms cleared that hurdle by more than double, so I fired up the snowblower and had at it.  The most recent storm added a quarter inch of ice as well, which I have yet to fully scrape off the rear view mirrors of my car.

I go to look at who is behind me and – BOOM! – “fly vision.”

There’s a hundred tiny distorted trucks attempting to pass me!  Save me, Jeff Goldblum!

Yet even with all of this the temperatures have remained near freezing – colder by enough to snow, but not much.  This ends tonight.

The next time we should see an overnight Fahrenheit temperature with a real square root will be sometime next weekend.  Next week will be mostly subzero even for the daytime highs, and by the middle of the week the numbers on the thermometer will have all been replaced by pictograms of sad brass monkeys.  They’ve already announced that the schools will open late tomorrow to give the wind chills a chance to subside a bit.

This is the point where my Canadian and Alaskan friends tell me that they go picnicking in such weather and that they would consider next week’s two-time predicted low of -21F (-29C) to be practically springtime.  It’s also the point where my upstate New York friend returns last week’s favor and says that it is now he who has won the weather exchange, which would be entirely accurate.

I knew that was a temporary win at the time.

Still better than August.

But I have my tea kettle and my books.  I have a warm, snug house and a respectable collection of sweatshirts. 

I may not leave the house at all.