Saturday, January 17, 2009

Thoughts on the Winter

It's always a bit strange to me that winter weather is news. It happens every year, right?

You may be tempted to believe that 16 degrees above zero is a veritable heat wave after days at -6. I am here to say, "do not be tempted". It's no longer dangerous to be outside, but is also not yet warm. By any stretch of the imagination.

The lid of my coffee cup which has been sitting in the car for the last three weeks was frozen onto the base. It tooks several minutes of warm running water to open it.

I no longer believe that 1 inch of snow is worth shoveling.

I saw several cars running unattended this morning. Coincidentally, I read in the newspaper that doing so is a crime. And if your car is stolen while you're warming it up, you still get the fine for leaving the key in an unattended car. But evidently the city has decided not to give tickets if the temperature is less than 10 degrees. Maybe be cause even car thiefs aren't that stupid?

My favorite headline this week came from the Chicago Tribune: City Held Frostage. Below it was a timer marking how long the city temperatures were staying below zero.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The news angle is that - in most places - every year is different.....

Anonymous said...

Frostage! I love it! I think I may have been held frostage myself as I sat on a runway at JFK for nearly 2 hours this morning waiting for deicing and runway plowing...