Cold Enough For Ya

February 06, 2019

Unless you have been hiding under a rock last week you'll know that the midwest was in the middle of a polar vortex. Temperatures got down to 20 degrees below zero and lower. Wind chills dropped that temperature to -50. Schools cancelled classes, businesses closed early and even the United States Postal Service suspended mail delivery for a day.
C and I stayed in the house. We had plenty of groceries and plenty of work to do. There was laundry to do, cleaning and organizing. There were books to read and craft project to work on. Unlike most people, I love days like this. These are the days that introverts dream of. No one expects you to go outside. It's not safe to shop or leave the house except in an emergency. It is perfectly acceptable to hibernate and recharge.
I'm no stranger to this kind of cold. I lived in Fargo, North Dakota for five years when I was in college. While I don't remember the wind chills going down that low, it wasn't unusual for temps to be in the double digits below zero. This is where I learned that it is possible to go out in nearly any kind of weather in the midwest. You just need to know how to dress for it.
People I know who live in the south were posting pictures of beaches and talking about the weather there. It was 100 degrees warmer in South Carolina then in Minnesota on some of those days. My southern in-laws wonder why C and I would deliberately choose to live in such a frigid place.
There are many reasons. One of them is that cockroaches do not thrive here. While I do know that it is possible to have roaches in homes and businesses in Minnesota, it's not common. In the Carolinas it is common, I fact I realised during our last trip. There are also some scary looking poisonous snakes. C says that you can find them everywhere and some of them look like sticks. There are dangerous snakes here too, but for many months of the year there is no problem with them.
Cold weather is easier to cope with than warm weather in my opinion. You can always put on a sweater, thick socks, and an extra blanket on the bed when it gets cold. In the heat there is only so much you can take off.
Another reason I like living here is because of my German Lutheran upbringing. Although not part of the official Lutheran doctrine, Lutherans believe that suffering is a necessary part of life. Garrison Keillor's portrayal of Lake Wobegon is not entirely fiction. I grew up around people like that. In order to deserve the warmth of spring and summer we must endure the cold of winter. I think maybe deep down inside I still believe that.
One thing that hot and cold weather have in common is that both feel worse in the presence of humidity. Last week, we did have to go out to do our usual church volunteer work. It was -15 to -25 degrees out. It didn't feel too bad though because it was a dry cold. No humidity at all. This week we went grocery shopping and it was 13 above, but I felt chilled to the bone. The air felt damp. Heat is the same way.
The only scary time during the polar vortex was when our power went out. It was 8:30 at night. Normally power outages do not bother me but this was serious. Depending on how long our power stayed out our pipes could freeze and it would be too cold to stay in the house. I worried about the cats and our instruments. To make matters worse both our cell phones were low on power. Neither of us knew where our emergency charger was. The batteries in our flashlight died after a few minutes. Fortunately we have a lot of candles. C called the power company. They knew about the outage and were working on it. I hoped it wasn't due to an accident on a line. Those could take days to repair. The estimated time to restoration of service was given as about two hours. We could manage that. My stepdaughter Denise called and said that her boyfriend could bring a generator to us if we needed it. We told her we'd stay in touch.
About an hour and a half later the power came back on. I was relieved and went to bed.
The weather this week is somewhat better. It's warmer, but now we are dealing with snow and ice. I'd rather deal with the cold, but I have no choice in what comes.
I kept hoping that during the polar vortex someone would email me or message me on Facebook to ask if it is cold enough for me. I wanted to be able to say, Yes, it is. :-).