One of the reasons I’m glad to be home is that Richmond winters are pretty mild. They don’t last long and they aren’t generally the really real cold that I encountered when I lived in the Midwest. But now and then the temperature does actually drop, and tonight on the walk home it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit ( Read more... )

So the power’s out at 704. Also, it’s out at 702, next door. Everybody else on the block has power. It’s only the two of us who’ve gone dark. And cold, of course, because this happened just as the coldest day of the year was coming along, and we have electric heat ( Read more... )

I did not travel to Minneapolis with the family for Thanksgiving. I thought I would be better off spending the holiday here alone for three reasons:
First, Minneapolis is stupid cold, and cold and I just can’t seem to coexist peaceably. I simply cannot reconcile myself to winter.  I’m like Don Quixote, only worse, ‘cause at least he confined himself ( Read more... )

Jeannie’s been unusually good lately. She hasn’t been the evil hate-beast psycho-kitty I’ve come to know and love (reluctantly) over the past three years. No assaults, no unexplained hurricanes of fury, no face-biting in my sleep. I walk unafraid through my apartment with the lights off and no shoes on, and my feet have no new scars on them.
She ( Read more... )

Well, it snowed like hell yesterday!  I didn't take as many pictures as I probably should have, but I have a few, which I'm gonna put under a cut so I don't flood your Friends Pages with them.  Katy and I had an adventure, and then Jeannie had an adventure (I didn't realize this 'til I tried to follow her footprints this morning, or there would be ( Read more... )

Seriously.  Can’t talk.  Well, I'm not speechless right this minute, 'cause I'm inside.  But I was speechless earlier, when I was running errands before work.
I’m wasn't speechless because I’ve been shocked or anything.  Biology and meteorology conspired to make me speechless.

See, when you exhale, there’s moisture in your breath.  You know that.  I’ ( Read more... )

I love the snow.  I hate the cold, of course; hate it more than anyone else I know.  I spend winter in a kind of constant rage because 1) being cold pisses me off and 2) there isn't really anyone I can yell at about it, so there's no place for the anger to go.  Winter is long slow boil time for me.
But the snow I love.  I don't know why.  I like to ( Read more... )

Today is Huntington's first genuinely cold day, and my friends, I'm miserable. Nobody in the world hates the cold more than I do. The worst day of every year is the day I take out my coat and put in on for the first time, and I just did that. I need to go back to California ( Read more... )