Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

Back in December, I shared with you our blizzard of the decade. I declared that if it was winter, it ought to be cold, and there ought to be snow. It’s two months later and winter has not let me down.

Overnight was only the second coldest of the winter so far. It didn’t quite go down to double digits below zero Fahrenheit like the other one did about a month ago, but at a certain point, splitting hairs over a degree or five is, well, pointless. It’s cold! 

I walk seven minutes in the morning to catch the light rail train that delivers me to the office, and thirty minutes hoofing it all the way home after work. It’s a good walk because it’s long enough to be beneficial as exercise, but not so long that it’s boring and I lose interest and don’t do it. The last winter or two have been relatively mild, both from temperature and snowfall standpoints. It’s true I have been overusing my winter boots this year, but I had completely forgotten until today about my wear-contacts-instead-of-glasses technique. It was so fantastic this morning to keep my face covered with double-scarfing and still be able to actually see where I was going, versus my usual alternating between a warm nose and only half fogged up glasses. Seeing is good!

I should have recalled this winter survival method sooner. I feel like it’s been since about October, but really, it’s probably only been since November that I can count on one hand the number of days that the temperature has been above freezing. I’m probably exaggerating by a month. Below-zero probably only started in December. About on Monday after the blizzard.

As a result of the prevailing temperatures, the snow has hung around. At my location in downtown Minneapolis, we got about fourteen inches of snow in the blizzard, then, during the next week, about four or six inches additional. I can remember one “stretch” of two or three days that it was above freezing, but not so radically that much of the snow melted. Not much of the snow has melted. 

If each day were equivalent to 10,000 years, this winter would be an ice age and the snow banks in my front yard would be glaciers. The little birdies that somehow stay alive and function in these temperatures would still be T. rexes and I wouldn’t have to wear my contacts and bundle up with long underwear, winter boots, double scarfing, two pairs of handwear, and two layers of headwear plus the hood of my sleeping bag down coat because the comet wouldn’t have yet struck and it would still be tropical.

So these, then, were the conditions today, at 8:00am and 4:00am. Things improved by a whole 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Crisp and clean with no caffeine. Cold? Yes. Minnesota? You betcha!

*Those two door slams in the birdie movie are my neighbor Jen coming home. Just in case you were curious.