It's cold
Having grown up in the far north, where winter temperatures stay low all day and it's mostly dark by the time we started walking home from school, I was shocked during my first year of college to observe the habits of people who had never lived with snow before. I remember in particular an L.A. girl in my second-year German class who would walk in out of a raging blizzard wearing a short skirt, t-shirt and down vest, stamp the snow off her sandaled feet and whine, "I'm FREEZING! Why is it so COLD all the time?!"
What a baby, I thought. And what an idiot! This is Utah, and it's the middle of winter! Didn't anyone ever teach her how to dress? Sheez!
Now that I've lived in California for more than a quarter of my life (!) I can kind of understand her predicament. For one thing, my idea of "cold weather" has changed – a 60-degree day calls for extra layers, and if I have to wear a scarf and hat, it seems like a very big deal. Gloves I almost never wear, and only on the coldest winter days do I resort to long johns or thermal camisoles.
When I'm bundled up like that, I feel like I can handle anything. But it's still only maybe 45 or 50 degrees outside. So I can see how that girl might have thought she had it covered by wearing a down vest – maybe that was her "extreme cold weather" gear!
All this by way of announcing that it's finally starting to get what I consider "cold" around here. Last night I arrived home late to an unheated house, and according to the little digital thermometer on my alarm clock, the temperature in my room was 53 degrees (luckily I like a cold room for sleeping in, with open windows and lots of fresh air). Right now, in my office, the temperature is 60 degrees – one degree colder than it is outside, if the weather widget on my desktop is to be believed. In fact, it's just been confirmed that the air conditioner is still on!
This might not be a big deal to people who are used to living in places where it really does get cold – for example, in the town I grew up in, it's supposed to snow tomorrow! – but to me, it's still too cold for comfort. Too cold to type or work comfortably, anyway. Last winter I came up with the solution of filling a Nalgene bottle with scalding hot tap water and holding it in my lap while I worked, reaching down from time to time to thaw my frozen fingers on the warm purple plastic – a nice use for my favorite old camping bottle, since we now know they're not really safe to drink from.
Today, people are making jokes about Bob Cratchit gloves – the kind where the fingertips are cut out so you can still use a quill pen, or a keyboard. I'm wearing three layers and have a wool hat on standby. We're not supposed to mess with the thermostat, but if somebody doesn't get the AC thing figured out by Monday I'm seriously considering taking matters into my own gnarled little frostbitten hands.
What a baby, I thought. And what an idiot! This is Utah, and it's the middle of winter! Didn't anyone ever teach her how to dress? Sheez!
Now that I've lived in California for more than a quarter of my life (!) I can kind of understand her predicament. For one thing, my idea of "cold weather" has changed – a 60-degree day calls for extra layers, and if I have to wear a scarf and hat, it seems like a very big deal. Gloves I almost never wear, and only on the coldest winter days do I resort to long johns or thermal camisoles.
When I'm bundled up like that, I feel like I can handle anything. But it's still only maybe 45 or 50 degrees outside. So I can see how that girl might have thought she had it covered by wearing a down vest – maybe that was her "extreme cold weather" gear!
All this by way of announcing that it's finally starting to get what I consider "cold" around here. Last night I arrived home late to an unheated house, and according to the little digital thermometer on my alarm clock, the temperature in my room was 53 degrees (luckily I like a cold room for sleeping in, with open windows and lots of fresh air). Right now, in my office, the temperature is 60 degrees – one degree colder than it is outside, if the weather widget on my desktop is to be believed. In fact, it's just been confirmed that the air conditioner is still on!
This might not be a big deal to people who are used to living in places where it really does get cold – for example, in the town I grew up in, it's supposed to snow tomorrow! – but to me, it's still too cold for comfort. Too cold to type or work comfortably, anyway. Last winter I came up with the solution of filling a Nalgene bottle with scalding hot tap water and holding it in my lap while I worked, reaching down from time to time to thaw my frozen fingers on the warm purple plastic – a nice use for my favorite old camping bottle, since we now know they're not really safe to drink from.
Today, people are making jokes about Bob Cratchit gloves – the kind where the fingertips are cut out so you can still use a quill pen, or a keyboard. I'm wearing three layers and have a wool hat on standby. We're not supposed to mess with the thermostat, but if somebody doesn't get the AC thing figured out by Monday I'm seriously considering taking matters into my own gnarled little frostbitten hands.
3 Comments:
I lost all my ability to deal with cold weather soon after I moved to Portland.
And I'm a person who lived most of her adult life in Chicago and grew up in a place where it was routinely 20 below zero. I went out in it every day to do my early morning paper route and to walk to school.
Clearly, at some point I was tough as nails, but now? If it gets down to 40, I'm like, "Oooh, it's really cold out." What happened? This seems to be a really common phenomenon. A lot of people from cold climates tell me that now that they live in Portland, they can't deal with the cold. Weird.
Your office sound miserable and I'm not at all surprised that Bob Cratchit cropped up. Let's hope Scrooge will have ratcheted up the thermostat by Monday.
I can't believe if that many people are miserable, that they wouldn't turn the damn heating system on. Sheesh.
And the worst thing about winter? Miniskirts teamed with knee high boots. As if that SERIOUSLY makes a difference.
I feel your pain. I'm down by Berkeley, sitting in my fairly warm house, with iceblocks for feet. My afternoon walk with a friend was coupled with many "Jeez, it's cold!" and "Brrrr!" comments. I'm such a wimp. In my defense, I DID grow up in Southern California, where seasons don't exist.
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