Warped and Frozen

The other day I walked outside and the sun so much that it made the day seem just a little bit milder, and I thought, “Gosh, it’s not bad out today at all.”

And then I got into my car and saw that the temperature was 10 degrees. I am not even kidding–this happened. Apparently, my perception of normal weather is entirely warped.

In fact, just writing this made me wonder, “What’s the temperature now”” Answer: it was 27 degrees. And when I saw that and realized that the next several days are going to be colder, I immediately set aside my laptop and reported outside for a brisk walk around the neighborhood. Sadly, I didn’t notice the wind from inside. It’s another one of those window days, as I call them. Looks good from in here. Shortly after I left the driveway, my walk shrank into a walk around the block.

Someone recently said that “global warming” turned out to be a poor choice of words (actually, it was Anna Quindlen). Clearly, there is climate change, but every time there’s cold or snow, some science-denier decides that this means everything’s going great. I was musing on that the other day, wondering what might be a better term. Briefly I was stuck on “Crazy-Pants Weather,” and I do think it’s more accurate, but then I realized that if we decided to dub our current climate the Crazy-Pants Weather Era, then every time there was a beautiful blue sky with fluffy white clouds, all the cranky anti-scientists would spend the whole day pointing out the weather’s momentary bout of sanity and looking smug. So, never mind.

But, see these sweaters?

They’re pretty, but they’re awfully warm. For years and years, they’ve really been too warm to wear in a practical sense. I’d pack them on trips to ski in Vermont, or sometimes I’d wear them as a top layer outside, instead of a jacket. But I run hot. Many years ago I had a facial, and the woman scrutinizing my face says, “Ah, you work out. . . I can see that you are sweaty here, around your hairline. . . .” and I made a little acknowledgement nod, but the truth is, at that time I didn’t work out. I’m just someone who sweats, like, from living my life.

Anyway, these sweaters that are a little too sweaty for this sweater to wear? I’ve been wearing them constantly, for weeks. I’m feeling pretty done.

Also, it seems like the cold weather might be attempting to destroy our house. We’re feeling pretty good about the roof (knock on wood!), because it was re-done recently. But possibly the foundation is buckling. Suddenly the back door and the bathroom door (you know, the ones that knock into each other) don’t close very well because something’s gone warped and off-kilter. In fact, the bathroom door doesn’t close. The best you can get is almost closed. Luckily, it’s on the outer perimeter of the house, so we avoided it and its torturously cold toilet bowl already, anyway. This is the sort of thing that makes Cute W wake up in the middle of the night and fret about our home’s imminent collapse. He pretty much can’t go through that door without muttering ominously. And that means quite a bit of muttering. The prospect of waiting it out and then finding out how much it will cost to prevent our house from crumbling is, if you’ll forgive me, chilling.