Cold here

I came up to my room tonight after supper, through the snow and the cold, and as I entered my room and began to take off my coat, I thought to myself (or perhaps said out loud to the empty room, I cannot recall) “Hey! It’s pretty warm in here! I bet it’s probably at least 50 degrees, maybe as much as 53!” Which is an interesting thing because I remember a day many summers back when I had a fine day and thought it was just a perfect day to spend outside in the sun playing, and the next day the papers proclaimed it had been 122 degrees. And I remember posting not too long ago about how much it was costing to keep my house heated, and what temperatures I thought were simply too cold. I ended up leaving my thermostat around 65, believing nothing less could conceivably be comforable. And here I was, saying to myself that 50 degrees felt warm. I realised all of this before I got my coat off and moved over to the thermometer.

Which advised me that the ‘warm’ room I was in was actually a toasty 38 degrees. Toasty. 6 degrees colder is literally freezing. Sure, sure. It’s Zero degrees in the northeast and feet and feet of snow. But I just moved up from the valley of the sun, where we have had several days above 80 degrees already this year. So… there’s something odd about coming into a room that’s 38 degrees and thinking it’s ‘pretty warm’ for me.

Oh yeah, did I mention it snowed? Thinking back, I believe that this is the first time that I’ve experienced real, natural snow first-hand since the last time I lived in Pine, about 20 years ago. When I was 4 or 5 years old. So, err.. It’s all new to me. I keep taking photos. I’ll probably end up getting some of them on the website before long. Except that the digital camera up here is an older Mavica that writes to floppy disks, and Apple stopped putting floppy drives in their computers … something like 5 or 6 years ago. So I’m going to bring a stack of full floppies with me down to Phoenix on Monday (my grandfather has a doctors appointment, so I will come along) and see if I can get a CD burned with them on it. Then I’ll see about putting them together on the website somewhere. Not interesting to people in other places, but … Snow is one of those things in Phoenix like lakes. We just never see it. Okay, that may have missed it. Let me try again. Snow is to Phoenix as … intelligence is to George Bush. Got it? Good enough.

Anyway, in the intervening hours I have been trying to get this place warmed up to a temperature my rational mind things is warm. You know, at least half my body temperature. Actually, looking now at the thermometer, it’s about 56 degrees in here. I still seem to have a bit of trouble starting a good fire, something about … I don’t know what. Anyway, I found something interesting. Well, not something interesting, really. What I found while unpacking was a box or two chock full of bills and receipts not less than 2 years old, averaging 3-4 years old. Now, I can’t imagine why I’d need a 4 year old bill from Speedchoice; they’ve been out of business for half as long. Or USWest. So, I’ve been going through, pulling out potentially important envelopes (mostly just anything labeled “IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENTS ENCLOSED”) and converting the rest of them to heat. Hooray heat!

And now I’ll go make a post about my phone.

Published by

Teel

Author, artist, romantic, insomniac, exorcist, creative visionary, lover, and all-around-crazy-person.

14 thoughts on “Cold here”

  1. Oh, hey. I just found a Silver Certificate $1 bill in here. Not in good condition, but it may still be worth more than $1. Or hey, at least a dollar, right?

    Good thing I’m going through it instead of just dumping it on the fire, eh?

  2. Oh, hey. I just found a Silver Certificate $1 bill in here. Not in good condition, but it may still be worth more than $1. Or hey, at least a dollar, right?

    Good thing I’m going through it instead of just dumping it on the fire, eh?

  3. I forgot to tell you too keep the camera still while it writes to the disk or it may not write properly. Inertia you know.

  4. I forgot to tell you too keep the camera still while it writes to the disk or it may not write properly. Inertia you know.

  5. I live outside of Detroit, MI. There is plenty of snow here. I’d be glad to share all of it with you, as a matter of fact. The truth about snow is it is a horrible thing. It’s a sign of the dead season, when everything sucks and checking the mail is a dreadful task instead of a quick couple of steps. Don’t get me wrong, I still spend a lot of time outside, but completely covered from head to toe and icey wind still cutting through your sorry carcass like butter somehow dims the ideas of winter being a ‘pretty’ season. My summer consists of 3 warm months, each day of which is treasured, and then Jack Frost takes over again. Your plumbing could freeze, your car takes a half hour to warm up, driving with the windows down will give you frost bite in the nose and ears, touching anything metal or covered with snow can cause frost bite in the hands (ever had frost bite?) the ground is slippery where there isn’t snow, and if you try to walk in the snow, your socks will be wet for the rest of the day, and when you put your shoes on the next morning, the insides will probably still be cold soaked. I can’t wait to move to an Army base down south and be rid of winter forever, for it is truelly the most detestable time of the year.

  6. I live outside of Detroit, MI. There is plenty of snow here. I’d be glad to share all of it with you, as a matter of fact. The truth about snow is it is a horrible thing. It’s a sign of the dead season, when everything sucks and checking the mail is a dreadful task instead of a quick couple of steps. Don’t get me wrong, I still spend a lot of time outside, but completely covered from head to toe and icey wind still cutting through your sorry carcass like butter somehow dims the ideas of winter being a ‘pretty’ season. My summer consists of 3 warm months, each day of which is treasured, and then Jack Frost takes over again. Your plumbing could freeze, your car takes a half hour to warm up, driving with the windows down will give you frost bite in the nose and ears, touching anything metal or covered with snow can cause frost bite in the hands (ever had frost bite?) the ground is slippery where there isn’t snow, and if you try to walk in the snow, your socks will be wet for the rest of the day, and when you put your shoes on the next morning, the insides will probably still be cold soaked. I can’t wait to move to an Army base down south and be rid of winter forever, for it is truelly the most detestable time of the year.

  7. Where I come from, in Phoenix, Summer is at least 6 months of the year and winter is at most 6 weeks. But if it gets cold enough to freeze your pipes, it makes the papers, and if there’s a flurry of snow, they talk about it for years. Even here in Pine, where it’s snowing right now and has been snowing for three days, they predict that the snow will be off the ground by the end of next week. Heck, the highs are supposed to be in the 60s next weekend.

    When I started reading your comment I thought “Why doesn’t he just get the heck out of Detroit?” then I saw that you were there because of military assignment. Sorry. Hopefully we’ll go to war and you’ll have to ship out to the middle east, where it’s considerably warmer.
    (^_^)

  8. Where I come from, in Phoenix, Summer is at least 6 months of the year and winter is at most 6 weeks. But if it gets cold enough to freeze your pipes, it makes the papers, and if there’s a flurry of snow, they talk about it for years. Even here in Pine, where it’s snowing right now and has been snowing for three days, they predict that the snow will be off the ground by the end of next week. Heck, the highs are supposed to be in the 60s next weekend.

    When I started reading your comment I thought “Why doesn’t he just get the heck out of Detroit?” then I saw that you were there because of military assignment. Sorry. Hopefully we’ll go to war and you’ll have to ship out to the middle east, where it’s considerably warmer.
    (^_^)

  9. Teel used a cutesy smilie. Weird.

    On an unrelated note, I am typing this at the Maricopa Workforce Center where I am taking six hours of tests so they can tell me what my personality is. The computer I am on has a keyboard with keys half as small as most, with huge gaps in between the keys for your fingers to get trapped in, and a mouse with no wheel on it for scrolling. It’s like torture trying to write this.

    It is warm in here though.

    I was thinking you ought to be careful Teel, as floppies may actually get too cold in your current environment to exist properly. Isn’t their limit like freezing or so?

  10. Teel used a cutesy smilie. Weird.

    On an unrelated note, I am typing this at the Maricopa Workforce Center where I am taking six hours of tests so they can tell me what my personality is. The computer I am on has a keyboard with keys half as small as most, with huge gaps in between the keys for your fingers to get trapped in, and a mouse with no wheel on it for scrolling. It’s like torture trying to write this.

    It is warm in here though.

    I was thinking you ought to be careful Teel, as floppies may actually get too cold in your current environment to exist properly. Isn’t their limit like freezing or so?

Comments are closed.