Thursday, December 5, 2013

cold

Boy, is it ever cold outside.

How cold is it, Johnny?

It's so cold I saw these two penguins buying a space heater.

And I have a cart to bring things up from the truck. The cart has a spongy rubber tube wrapping the handle. Tight as can be like a floaty tube that is glued on. The whole metal cart shrank. The usual things that fit tight in the cart could not fit as usual, and handle shrank so the rubber tube could slide back and forth easily.

The weather moved in like a wall of gray over the mountains, then obscuring them, then covering the foothills too, a flat gray wall advancing toward the city like an alien army except nicer than that and a lot colder looking and all the way up, and then suddenly we're in it. 

It's fun. 

I mentioned this to a few people outside here and there as the weather moved in observably right before us over a few hours and in each case their eyes lit up and they said they were watching it too, and it is rather exciting, and sometimes they pointed to their view. The haircut lady spun my chair around and said, "That is what we are watching." The Taste of Philly guy at the cash register pointed out the window behind me, the building blocks the view, but  allows a gap at the corner where from his station the mountains are in view, he described himself watching the whole thing. 

19 comments:

JAL said...

Stay warm, Chipper.

MamaM said...

Amazing to see and feel, and also hear about!

Unknown said...

6 degrees in the cloudless high-noon sunshine. minus negative f*kall if you include the wind-chill.

rhhardin said...

Stretched rubber expands when cooled, unlike everything else in the universe.

The Dude said...

It was 67 here today, rainy, but the ice that is now in Arkansas is headed this way. A big temperature swing this time of year can be very dangerous.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

So what, exactly, does Philly taste like?

The Dude said...

Salty garbage.

ricpic said...

On some mornings a line of clouds marches north over Lake Cayuga. I live about half a mile west of the lake and I can look over the lake to the eastern shore and both west and east of the lake are cloudless. The clouds are exclusive to the lake itself. It's quite striking. Any of you scientific big brains know the why of such a phenomenon?

The Dude said...

What you are seeing is nothing more than the smoke from the Guns of the Seneca. No worries.

edutcher said...

It's coming our way, too.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

So what, exactly, does Philly taste like?

Tastykakes (especially the chocolate creamies and the lemon pies), Good and Plenty, Mrs Paul's Fish Sticks...

Fr Martin Fox said...

Chip:

If you don't mind saying so, where is home for you?

Amartel said...

It's 43 degrees here in San Franfreakshow. Had to break out the long winter coat. (Yes, I know, boohoo.)

Chip Ahoy said...

Denver Colorado, near the center of town a few blocks from the capitol where the two main streets intersect.

Taste of Philly is not salty shit.

The first time I had ate there the sandwich was greasy shit.

And that put me off permanently.

Until I decided to try it again and now it is the best sandwich on earth.

They sell one called the "chili Philly" that is loaded, and I mean loaded with jalapeños. That is the one I get every time. The big one. And it makes two complete and extremely satisfying meals.

And all the people I met there are engaging and nice.

AllenS said...

AllenS reporting from Star Prairie, WI with a 2º temp. No wind. Yesterday, it was cold and windy.

AllenS said...

Earlier I had stated the temp was 2º. That was looking through the window with a flash light. Well, the sun is up and the temp is -8º. I looked at the wrong red line.

Simon Kenton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Simon Kenton said...

-12F this morning when I fired up the diesel and headed for the spin class. The club was economizing on natural gas - anybody else ever testily think that all this here environmentalism is just the dandiest cover for sanctimonious pecksniffery? or is that pecksniffism? -- and after only an hour of 15 of us peddling to exhaustion, the room temperature was a balmy 55.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

The winter cold fronts arrive here in South Texas with similar dramatic suddenness. It's so flat that you can see them coming and feel the telltale signs. At first when the wind is still out of the south off the Gulf it's 77 and extremely humid. Then the breeze picks up, leaves start blowing around, and there are weird areas of cold in the wind, like the opposite of pee in a swimming pool. Then you glance up and behold a wall of dark cloud advancing from the north. The wind picks up ahead of it and it's cool and stiff--then you have about half an hour to put on another layer before the temperature starts dropping like a stone. Just this process happened yesterday. When I took my preschoolers out on the playground at 11 am, it was 78, still and nasty humid. When school let out at 2 pm the wind was howling and it was 52 degrees, with the windchill sitting at 38.

Michael Haz said...

It's winter. It's supposed to be cold. No big deal.