It's really cold, but I have been walking to work everyday!

I can finally say to my children...

that when I was 30, I had to walk through the snow in my pajamas to do laundry!

It's been snowing all night. It still is. Everything is covered in this beautiful, virginal blanket of white (a good 5-6 inches thick)-- my car, the streets, the sidewalks. I have been walking to work the last few days. I was going to drive today, as I have equipment to take with me. Now, the question is-- will I drive or walk? In both cases, I will tarnish the landscape (although I can hear someone scrapping the sidewalk right now). On the one hand, I will be protected from elements, as will the camera equipment, but I will have to dig the car out of the snow and let it heat up a bunch. On the other hand, I will be more environmental, get snowed on a bunch (so soggy and cold when I get there), and will be carrying increasingly heaving bags on the walk. I predict they will take the same amount of time (digging/heating vs. walking).

What to do.

Oh, and no one ever talks about how snow isn't white when it snows. It's blue. The clouds are thick, and diffuse so much llight, the world is icy blue. It looks like a job for color film!

How cool am I?

Yesterday, it was -9 and breezy most of the day. That's right. Negative cold. So cold, there can't be clouds in the sky. So cold, that even though it is sunny and blue skied, your fingers freeze instantly if you touch the snow. I tried to use my windshield spray and it froze instantly coming out of the nozzle.

During my class yesterday, the department secretary came running in. She was so frantic, I thought someone was having a heart attack. "The starlings are above the cars. You have to take a break and move the car!" I didn't have time for a break, and this seemed a little over the top. But sure enough, when I left my office at dusk, the car was brown with bird shit. The inside of the windows were covered in ice, and the outsides were covered in shit. Lovely. I waited for them to thaw so I could drive straight to the car wash. Ten minutes later, ice free, revealed I could not actually see through the refuse. I had to get out and scrape it! So gross. The car wash was the best fourteen dollars I have ever spent.

Today is -1. It feels warm by comparison. Brisk, but manageable. I ran errands. I didn't wear my gloves outside (I wasn't walking far). Doable.

The errand I ran today was to buy a new "ponytail" for my drier, so I could actually attack the pile of clothes slowly filling my new bedroom. It is a complicated process, involving positive and negative wires, neutral and ground wires. Kind of like a bomb. The Home Depot guys were stumped as I explained these wires to them. They only understood plug. "Look at the plug and find the one that matches," they said. No, I said. You have to also know what to do with the extra cables, or you will get shocked. They looked at each other. "Go home, and get a piece of paper and draw the shape of the plug, because you only have to match the plugs." I picked up what I needed and left them there. I wonder if they will be scanning the news to see if I burned the town down?

I went into the basement for the first time since last week (when I heard a noise, went to investigate, and promptly fell on the ice), tool box and ponytail in hand. Ten minutes later, the drier was running. How cool is that?