12:06 a.m. - 2004-12-08
Baby, It's Cold Outside
No fucking kidding it’s cold outside. This late start to winter meant that everybody sort of forgot about that whole lung-scorching, nose-hair-freezing, eyelash-breaking aspect of winter. I think it’s the only way anyone actually manages to stay in a place as cold as this. It’s like childbirth. When you’re giving birth, it’s the worst thing you’ve ever experienced, you’re never going to do it again, my god why would anyone have more than one child, but then you get a baby at the end and the crappy stuff fades from your memory, and suddenly a year or two later you want another one. (Ok, I know some people only have one and all, but it’s a metaphor, people. Let’s not get sticky.) It’s the same way with winter. You spend four or five or eight months of the year swearing you’re going to move somewhere with a normal climate, and you wear fifteen mittens and a duvet to work, and you glare at every thermometer you see, and then suddenly, it’s spring. You dust off your sandals and dig up your shorts (buried, inevitably, under half of each of the fifteen pairs of mittens, since you only ever lose single mittens), and you enjoy a delightful summer, and you totally forget about the AGONY and SUFFERING of winter. Because hey, snow is pretty! And there are a lot of fun things to do in the winter time! Like tobogganing, and snowmen, and skating, and skiing, and all those delightful things they always have on Christmas cards. And you forget about the fact that six out of seven days, it’s too freaking COLD to do any of those things.
So this time of year is always a bit of a rude awakening. People scurry too and from their cars, making eye contact and giving each other that “what the FUCK were we thinking when we moved here?” look that those of you who live in warmer climates probably aren’t familiar with. That look is a combination of “Jesus Christ, we’re idiots, who would want to live in a fucking wasteland like this?” and “Yeah, it’s cold, but look how tough we are! We live in a fucking wasteland like this because we’re BETTER than all those wusses who live in the south.” We’re a conflicted people, us cold-weather-dwellers. We’re never sure if we’re tougher than everybody else or just stupider.
The worst is the plugging in your car tango. Now, I shouldn’t complain too much, because I discovered on Monday that my plug was broken and then Jamie fixed it for me, so I’m very grateful to be plugging in my car at all. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck when you’re absolutely freezing but you have to take your mitten off to wiggle the plug into the extension cord and then wiggle the extension cord into the plug-in. You’re trying not to freeze your hand off so you try to do it really fast, but then you miss the plug and end up dropping the extension cord and then the extension cord is all snowy and then you have to wipe it off with your mitten, so then you only have one mitten and your mitten is wet, and you’re even more cold so your fingers aren’t working very well and it takes even longer to plug the god damn thing in. (Note: to those who have never heard of plugging in your car, cars up here have block heaters in them. There’s a little cord under the hood, and when you plug it in, it keeps the engine warm so you can start your car even when it’s this type of weather, with the minus 30. Kelvin.)
One of the things that sucks about living in an apartment on the third floor in a building with no elevator is that it’s way, WAY too much effort to go downstairs to start the car a few minutes before leaving for work. When I lived at home, in our old house, my dad would often leave a few minutes before I did and would start the car for me. That totally ruled, because my car would be toasty warm by the time I got out to it and it required precisely zero effort on my part, which is the best kind of effort. In our new house, the garage was heated, so not only was the car nice and warm when you got in it, you didn’t have to do the plugging in tango. Sigh. Those were the days. Now, though, it’s three flights of stairs and a hike across the complex to get to the car, and I am too lazy to do all that twice just for a few extra degrees in the car. I only have one winter to survive this way; next year, I will have (a) a garage, (b) the main floor of a house conveniently located directly next to the garage, for more ease of dashing out to start the car, and (c) a husband, who is the type of guy who would go and warm up the car for me before I have to get in, because he’s wonderful and sweet like that and also because he’s always ready at least ten minutes before I am, so he might as well pass the time getting the car warm because otherwise he’s just going to be pacing and glaring.
Another problem with Hoth-like temperatures (Jesus, I didn’t even have to look that up. Fucking Jamie, turning me into a Star Wars nerd!) is the fact that eating ice cream is generally unpleasant. Now, those of you who know me know that I love ice cream more than almost any other food. Jamie mocks me for it endlessly, but I have been known to snack directly out of the tub. (I like to think of it as conserving dishes.) But when it’s cold outside and you’re in a permanent state of chilly and your water glass gets icicles overnight, ice cream is not terribly appealing. So now I have these two delicious kinds of ice cream in the fridge that I want to eat, but if I eat them it will take at least three days to get warm again. (Me, that is. Not the ice cream. Because although we are weird in Canada, we do not keep our ice cream warm.)
I am forced to wear socks pretty much all the time in winter. I hate socks. I hate having anything on my feet at all, and if I could get away with it I’d wear sandals all year long. (Especially now, since I recently purchased the most comfortable sandals I’ve ever owned.) But my feet are almost always cold even when I’m wearing socks, and so I pretty much have to put them on as soon as I wake up or I’ll be breaking off a pinky toe or two by mid-morning. I try to compensate with blankets, and we have a lovely afghan in our living room that does the job nicely when I’m in the corner in my chair, but I still woefully need socks.
Speaking of my chair in the corner, while it is a delightful and comfortable chair, and perfect for curling up with my laptop in, it is right next to the balcony and it gets a little chilly over here. It’s a constant battle. Do I want to be comfortable but cold? Or mildly warm but uncomfortable?
These are the dilemmas of the dwellers of the frosty lands of the north. Truly, ours is a difficult life.
Obviously, the only solution is hibernation. Do you think my boss will go for that?
