cold
Idol 8 - my true north
Albuquerque doesn't actually think about the weather. It still matters .. a little bit, much like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast. Things that you know are important, and you do them every day, but they do not consume very much of your attention. These are the things you only truly notice when they are missing....and they very rarely miss.
The weather is generally pleasant. The sun shines most days, and the surrounding mountains protect the city from most major storms. Weather is generally not an issue. Extreme weather of any kind is rare.
Our intrepid heroine has random and assorted teenage crises, but none of them are related to the climate. As far as Howard Morgan or George Fishbeck were concerned, life was very good.
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Adjusting to North Dakota was brutal. The people talk funny. The restaurants CALL it "authentic Mexican food" ... but it isn't. And worst of all, they love to give directions using landmarks that no longer exist. "Go past where Red Owl was and turn left!" "Right next to where Ben Franklin used to be!" "The place that had that big fire!"
Those things are deeply ingrained. In 2011, we had a big flood. The previous big flood had happened in 1969. No less than FOUR TIMES, I listened as an older person said to my teen age daughter, "Well, don't you remember how they did xyz during the '69 flood? This is just like that."
Ummmm - no, actually. My kid honestly cannot remember things that happened 25 years before she was born. She is a good kid, and she has a good memory, but that is just beyond her pay grade...
But the MAJOR shock about North Dakota was the cold.
I thought I knew "cold."
I thought I had been cold.
I was acquainted with snow -- after all, we had lived in a skiing paradise. No, I did not ski, but that is another story for another time. I played in the snow, I made the random snowman, I listened to my parents stories of growing up in Iowa with seven-foot snowdrifts. I knew all about snow.
Or so I thought.
Cold is evil. It sucks away your breath, and it can suck away your life. Once the ground is white, it cannot warm up. The snowpack is long lasting -- one year, my children made a snowman on Halloween. They added ears to it at Easter.
Snow squeaks when you walk across fresh snow powder at twenty below. This snow is fine and dry -- an inch of snow is best disposed of with a push broom, not a shovel.
The cold sneaks into your bones, and you feel like you will never be warm again.
Then you listen to some silly relative whine about being cold at a temperature above freezing!
And you shake your head...
Because they do not know cold.
They have never been cold.
And they will never know the truth.
Albuquerque doesn't actually think about the weather. It still matters .. a little bit, much like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast. Things that you know are important, and you do them every day, but they do not consume very much of your attention. These are the things you only truly notice when they are missing....and they very rarely miss.
The weather is generally pleasant. The sun shines most days, and the surrounding mountains protect the city from most major storms. Weather is generally not an issue. Extreme weather of any kind is rare.
Our intrepid heroine has random and assorted teenage crises, but none of them are related to the climate. As far as Howard Morgan or George Fishbeck were concerned, life was very good.
-
Adjusting to North Dakota was brutal. The people talk funny. The restaurants CALL it "authentic Mexican food" ... but it isn't. And worst of all, they love to give directions using landmarks that no longer exist. "Go past where Red Owl was and turn left!" "Right next to where Ben Franklin used to be!" "The place that had that big fire!"
Those things are deeply ingrained. In 2011, we had a big flood. The previous big flood had happened in 1969. No less than FOUR TIMES, I listened as an older person said to my teen age daughter, "Well, don't you remember how they did xyz during the '69 flood? This is just like that."
Ummmm - no, actually. My kid honestly cannot remember things that happened 25 years before she was born. She is a good kid, and she has a good memory, but that is just beyond her pay grade...
But the MAJOR shock about North Dakota was the cold.
I thought I knew "cold."
I thought I had been cold.
I was acquainted with snow -- after all, we had lived in a skiing paradise. No, I did not ski, but that is another story for another time. I played in the snow, I made the random snowman, I listened to my parents stories of growing up in Iowa with seven-foot snowdrifts. I knew all about snow.
Or so I thought.
Cold is evil. It sucks away your breath, and it can suck away your life. Once the ground is white, it cannot warm up. The snowpack is long lasting -- one year, my children made a snowman on Halloween. They added ears to it at Easter.
Snow squeaks when you walk across fresh snow powder at twenty below. This snow is fine and dry -- an inch of snow is best disposed of with a push broom, not a shovel.
The cold sneaks into your bones, and you feel like you will never be warm again.
Then you listen to some silly relative whine about being cold at a temperature above freezing!
And you shake your head...
Because they do not know cold.
They have never been cold.
And they will never know the truth.