Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday find me inside. Working, but inside. Showered, but inside. Contact with the outside world? Only from inside. Didn’t even venture onto the patio. Why?
It’s cold.
Years living in the Midwest somehow did not prepare me for daytime highs of 50 and nighttime lows in the thirties. What the hell? What happened to shorts and pull over sweaters on the quad as soon as temps tipped above 40? What happened to skiing in below zero snowstorms? What happened to puffy down coats to keep Old Man Winter at bay? Arizona happened. Besides, puffy coats look good on exactly no one.
Sorority Sister so rails against the Minnesota winter she has a contest with herself every year: How long can she wear flip-flops? When it gets too bad she comes here, buys new flip-flops for the upcoming season and prays for May flowers. She’ll be here at month’s end.
It’s not that I don’t care for snow and ice and freezing drizzle. I actively hate it. Isn’t it pretty? Don’t you want to light a fire? Wanna go sledding? No, no and no. Something happens when a body moves to the surface of the sun. People are either on constant search for the chair in the shade or turn their faces toward the baking power of the fire orb in the sky. I fall in the latter. I’m in good company. The Goddess and I routinely search for the chair in the sun and need an extra sweater.
Is there scientific proof—as in the idea that a warmer climate causes blood to thin? Evidently not. According to a doc in South Carolina, the blood thinning we hear so much about is myth. He says, instead, it has to do with individual tolerance to cold weather changes or perhaps a loss of insulating fat that hit the road when we moved to a warmer climate. That can’t be it. My fat only hit the road when cancer ate it. She still hasn’t got the good grace to barf up my boobs and butt. Bitch.
I search for reasons beyond wimpiness, delicacy and fragility. Apparently it’s like most things—in the mind. In my search, however, I do find a detailed account of how one nearly freezes to death. Of course for that to happen there must be snow and ice and freezing temps. Two sweaters and furry slippers at 50 degrees seem an easier trade.
There is one ray of light. It’s reported that villagers in India are known to bundle up at 70 degrees and actually fear hypothermia at 65 degrees. Wimps.
The Duchess Diaries 