A Matter of Degrees

It is 8 degrees out right now (feels like -5). Tonight the wind chills will be 20 below zero. The high predicted for Monday will be -4. I don't even want to think about what that night will bring. It's winter, and I'm whining.

Years ago I made a deal with myself that I would only complain about one season. Winter is it. It can be 106 with 80% humidity and I won't say a word. But -4 is some kind of ungodly number. I feel bad for the birds I watch out the window. I'd invite them in if I could. I'm not sure how the rest of the animal kingdom is doing it.

Me, I'm hermiting. I didn't leave the house yesterday. I'm not planning to leave the house tonight. I'll go home, change into sweatpants, put on my slippers, and curl up under a blanket. And all that in a warm house. For the last three days, this has been my routine. New Year's Eve was cold, so we stayed in. Yesterday was barely 10, so we stayed in. And tonight we'll stay in.

I know I've grown up here. I should be used to this kind of weather. And in some ways I am. I can deal with the cold. I just don't want to.

Who Needs Sleep?

I find it funny that I just bought that song from BareNaked Ladies. And it feels so appropos today. I'm living on about 3 hours of sleep so I won't be posting anything huge. I'm not sure I'd be coherent enough for anything more than a couple sentences. So instead, I found this. And considering the amount of snow and cold we are expecting in the next three days (12 inches!!!!) I figure there is no time like the present to post it.

Stuart Carlson

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

Is it cold in here or is it just me?

Winter is fully upon us. With snow and wind and cold. Saturday was one of those days that was pretty chilly and I decided to spend bundled up in the house. Jeff and I woke up late (stupid Ny-Quil) and went out for lunch. I was still feeling bad so we just ran out to our neighborhood bar and grill. Then to the store.

And then we headed home with the idea that we would do some light cleaning and waste the rest of the cold day playing WoW. I started with some laundry and when I came downstairs I was freezing. I thought it was because I had taken my sweatshirt off but even putting that on didn't help. I glanced at the thermostat. 67 degrees. Now we keep the house at 73. I know most people would be roasting but we love it. In fact ours read that it was set for 73 but the temp was actually 67. Something was clearly not right.

Yep, the furnace had conked out. Well not conked out completely. It was trying to turn on, just no fire. Needless to say we were not happy. Now I sit at home in slippers and sweatshirts even when it is 73. We called the repair place and they told us that they would contact one of their repair people. That was at 2:30. I bundled up a little better and went back to cleaning. Finally around four I started playing. Still no word from the repair guy. At six were were starting to get worried. The temp was at 65 and the furnace was still trying to kick on. We turned it off completely.

At 6:30 Jeff called again. Neither one of us could believe that they would get a repair person out to us that night. Not at 6:30 on a Saturday. But at 7:30 he finally arrived. This poor man had been running since 8 that morning. He had two more stops that night. The problem was our control box. I guess the kind we have normally die after five years. Ours had lasted us 13. We gave him some extra money for coming that day and reveled in the warmth of the house. Somehow when you're warm, a $500 repair bill doesn't seem that bad. But all night I thought about that guy, out still running service calls. And I'd like to think I was a little less whiny after that.

Toesicles

Warning: This may very well be too much information. But it's what I'm thinking about today so...

I hate winter! I hate the snow and the cold and more than anything I hate that my toes go numb. Even with wool socks my toes go numb. And then they go white. And then they hurt. Which makes me anxious, and that makes them go even whiter. Not a fun situation. I have what doctors call Raynaud's syndrome. It's a fancy way of saying that when I get cold my fingers and toes stop circulating blood. I was thinking about this last night as I was sitting on the couch watching Dead Like Me (fantastic show, by the way). I had on my wool socks, with my feet under Jeff, while we sat under a blanket. And they were radiating cold.

The first time I had an attack I thought my little toe had fallen off. It actually feels like my frozen toes have fallen off and are rolling around in my socks. A little disconcerting to say the least. I took off my socks to find my toes ghost white. My feet were fine but the toes were radiating cold. No blood. That first time I sat with them over the radiators trying to rub feeling back into them. Now I just walk upstairs and run increasingly warmer water over them until I can feel the floor again.

The way the syndrome works is that when a normally body gets very cold it starts to limit the blood flow to the extremities (hands and feet). In normal people it takes extreme cold for this. It also takes prolonged exposure. For me, it takes a five minute drive to the grocery store on a 25 degree day. Plus most bodies just limit blood flow, mine shuts it off completely. One evening after coming back from a hockey game, I found that my toes and toenails were blue. So now I take foot warmers whenever I'm out in the cold for a long time.

All of this makes me wonder why I'm in the midwest. I know that some of this is anxiety driven but a majority of it is cold weather induced. About this time of year I start looking at houses down in Florida and dreaming of 50 degree winters. I gaze longingly at job applications in the sun belt and wonder about housing prices in Vegas. All winter long I'm like this. And then the spring comes, and the world blooms, and it is just too beautiful to leave. One of these years I'll head south, but for right now Jeff and I will have to deal with my toesicles.