The Cold

As yet another sign of how misplaced the priorities are when it comes to what the media chooses to report, as well as what its audience chooses to hear, see, and read, the news is full of mentions about everything except one of the things that these days matters most, and that is the cold. That figures if you live in a place closer to the tropics and you haven't chosen to be your own fuel company, and if your blood is still thick, which applies to most on the planet. But if you are freezing, then all other considerations fly out the window. That must be why there is considerably more fear, loathing, and murder in and around Israel, for instance, than you hear about among the Inuit and the Laplanders.

I have been steadily cold for several months now, maybe since the Summer Solstice.

Last night before I fell asleep, at around 11, the outdoors temp read at 10 F, and I knew the next morning was going to be especially tough, though Weather Underground had been predicting that for days. This morning when I awoke at 5:30, it was minus 4 degrees outside.

All my life I've lived in the midAtlantic region of the U.S., and seldom have I been in a subzero day. But I know that to Rook of Rook's Rant, a longtime Internet friend and one of the saltiest and most humorous characters that I know of, online or off, -4 degrees isn't even worth mentioning.

For some reason, through most and possibly all his life he has lived in Minnesota, the traditionally coldest state in the U.S., even including Alaska, where at least they have the Matanuska Valley, where they grow cabbages as big as thera balls. Minnesota has 10,000 lakes, with frigid winds constantly blowing off of each and every one, and it is the home of International Falls, which for years has recorded the coldest temps in the nation, though a nearby town with a name like Desolation or Desperation or some such has been fiercely vying to take over that honor and where, even as we speak, the temp undoubtedly has a zero added to the wrong side of what it is here.

Not long ago Rook worked and rode bicycles on his "tour-de-Rook" in or near those towns, yet he wondered why lately he had a mysterious illness. And you will seldom read on his weblog any mention of the situation in Minnesota that matters most, aside from Al Franken's squeezing out a Senatorial win (though he has strangely ignored that, too) -- how well his state is keeping up its icebox rep.

I wonder if Rook knows how unreasonably and unbelievably cold minus forty (40!) degrees is, as was recorded in the northern part of his state and also in another place that is also much better suited to be visited than to be lived in, Maine, just the other day? Probably not, just as he has probably never seen fit to use the term "witch's teat."

Instead, if he says anything at all about the cold, he will just remark that yes, maybe it can get a little nippy but that's one of the rewards for living in this great place, and instead he will casually drop in an anecdote such as one about his lady, who once got so caught up in a difference of opinion that she was having with someone that she stood outside in the snow in a verbal slugging match for half an hour, barefoot! And you know that Minnesota snow must be a lot colder than Virginia snow.

He might try to retort by using the word "snow" in another meaning, by saying,"--But no deeper than Virginia snow." To which my answer would be, "What Virginia snow?"

But tomorrow there's a 30% chance of snow here, with temps in the 30's. I am glad even for that modest chance, because, among other things, then it will be a lot warmer.