Who Me Cold?
My husband always says that because I’m “nordic” (meaning in his mind that I’m from somewhere cold) that I should be comfortable with cold weather. And so he nevers gives me any sympathy when I complain of being cold. The reality is that he is far more comfortable with cold weather than I am.
It’s true that I grew up in a cold climate and I have plenty of experience with staying warm through a long winter. I even went camping in the dead of winter once; I skiied 6 miles up a valley in Rocky Mountain National Park, touched off a point release avalanche along the way (you haven’t lived until you’ve done that!) and ended up digging a snow cave to sleep in. It was beautiful but perversely cold and I’m in no hurry to repeat that experience.
So here I am in the tropics, in Cancun, in December, and I’m freezing my butt off. I need to remind you that THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! It’s apparently 75 degrees F, but I don’t believe that for one little minute. I’m certain that weather report is simply propaganda being spread by the hotel industry who just wants everyone to think that it never gets cold here!
I’ve had to break out the socks and give up on flipflops! And I am even wearing a sweater inside my house. Horrors! The trauma! Even the cats are cold, instead of laying around separately on the tile floors they are snuggling together on the beds; cats that don’t get along with one another are putting aside their differences in favor of staying close and warm. And the dog’s name has been changed from Sam to Heat Source and I’m encouraging him to lie at my feet where ever I am so I can rest my frozen toes on him and suck some heat from his fat little furnace of a body.
I’ve been drinking hot beverages all day long. I started with coffee, switched to herbal tea and two hours ago I graduated to chai tea with milk. No one can tell me I’m not well hydrated today.
I don’t use my oven very often but today I decided to make baked potatoes not because I wanted to eat them but because, without a heater in the house, running the oven was my best option for warming the house up. And it worked, sort of. Between actually shutting ALL the windows (which we almost never do) and running the oven for over two hours I think I managed to raise the temperature in the house a whole 5 degrees. Well, it’s better than nothing.
At least I can’t see my breath when I exhale, not yet anyway.
December 17th, 2007 21:09
Yep, sure feels chilly, I’m such a bad Canuck. It was 80 F this afternoon and I had the socks on and pants, gasp! Hubby thinks it’s REALLY cold which is a great argument for us to not return to Canada as he wishes. He couldn’t handle it, lol. (Nor could I, thus living in Cancun). 🙂