Baby, It's Cold Outside

Well, we have seen the up side of 10 degrees for the last time for a while. And every year when we reach the first really extended cold snap we go into this seizure of reactions. It becomes the topic of conversation. We wonder why we live here in the frozen north. We either bundle up like a kid who can hardly move or we try to act tough and go out with a spring jacket on.

And bloggers like me write about it since our brains our so frozen we don't know what to think.

Actually I know it is dangerous and we too often take it with too cavalier an attitude. We are not ready for or used to this weather anymore if we were ever able to. Back before better insulation and better furnaces and super heaters in cars, this was a deadly time of year. Now we hop in our car with frigid wind-chills swirling around us. We push up the fan on our car heaters to defrost (i.e. melt) the ice forming on our side windows and punch the electric heater for the back window as it too freezes from the warmer air we humans exude.

Somehow we have to find a sensible way of dealing with this. BIG HEADLINES can scare us, but they don't necessarily keep us aware. I was recently told that last winter during a particular cold stretch there were far more hospital admissions for cold-related issues than usual. We are more protected than we used to be- so perhaps we do get a little lackadaisical.

I for one am guilty of that- and then whining about the cold. In the end, however, in spite of all our modern conveniences and protections, old Mother Nature is a lot stronger than we give her credit for being.