Vocab lesson on "cold"

To say it is "cold" is a mistake. Cold is somewhere near 32 degrees. Ass-cold is something near 0. However, we're in the range of -18 at almost 9am. We're also under a windchill warning because those winds rushing upon us (as a light breeze) are between -40 to -45. So when I ammended the weather yesterday to say we were approaching the 9th Circle of Hell, I came close.

But, damn, the view is picture perfect! Imagine a clear morning sky with pink yellow light hitting the trees and casting blue shadows over the snow...

According to my thesaurus (Roget's International Thesaurus, 5th ed.), the listing for non-formal epithets for "cold":

cold as a welldigger's ass

cold as a witch's tit (or kiss)

cold enough to freeze the tail/balls off a brass monkey

cold as a bastard/bitch

colder than hell (or the deuce/devil)

These are common around here during the winter. I'm sure there are more colorful ones as well. However, the regular use of "cold" as an adjective produced little in the way of good description. They were usual, commonplace. I didn't like them (as I hear them daily on the news). A few: sharp, bitter, keen, frigid, icy, nasty, chilly, cutting. Sometimes I wonder if the English language is limiting or we are just too lazy to explain ourselves properly.

*****

God bless all the poor trash collectors who have to be out today as it is trash day for many in our neighborhood. All the schools in the area are closed today--buses don't run and they don't want kids outside waiting for buses or walking to school. Heck, even my dog won't go out. [I've been on the computer about an hour this morning and I haven't even seen one car drive past.]

I know the weather is terrible when I have to bundle myself up in the same manner my mother did when I was five. It almost makes me wish I had snowpants. However, I must make due with thermal leggings under my jeans and two pairs of mittens and scarves and two hoods (one a hoodie sweatshirt and one on my coat). Then the shivering commences as I step out to shovel half the driveway before I come in to have hot cocoa and warm up. But today, I say bugger the driveway. It can stay snowy and I'm going to sit inside in a blanket and be lazy.

Cold Colder Coldest

Ah, winter. Would that heaven could save us from it...

Time for the weather report. It's cold out folks. Bonecrushing cold.

The kind of cold which will wrench the spirit out of a young

man, or forge it into steel.

--Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

Northern Exposure, Lost and Found, 1992

It is 5 degrees this morning...at 6 am. We're supposed to settle at a balmy 4 degrees for the high today with a nice breeze at 10 to 20 below. This is only because we've got the lake effect snow dumping on us. How lucky are we that an enormous body of water keeps us sheltered from the bitter winters blowing in across the Dakotas. Everyone on the other side of Lake Michigan is bitterly cold. However, once the clouds clear this afternoon we'll hit -13 degrees under a lovely starry sky.

I'm on a two hour delay this morning--woohoo! Except that it won't matter much because the temperature is what kills you...not the snow. It's so fun to walk outside and have the breath sucked right out of your lungs!



Ammended Weather Forecast: Approaching the 9th circle of hell.

Ok, sun is just beginning to set. We have had a lovely sunny afternoon with blinding whiteness blaring from every direction. If you could stay inside, it was perfect. But instead of holding, temperatures have continued to drop all day. So, tonight at 6pm it is a sweltering -8 degrees with a light wind that freezes your nose hair the moment you step outside (roughly -30 degrees).

Now the weather stations are saying we could get close to a record -22 (before wind chill is factored in).

O, Sweet Shovel

And again, I must go out and shovel the driveway. Although I don't think I will go now as it is quarter to seven and no one is yet awake. I think it is pointless to wake the neighbors with the scraping of metal on cement. We got about 8 inches of snow between Friday and yesterday late in the afternoon.

Outside, the overcast sky is holding in ambient light from nearby stores and looks like a very murky, muddy peachpink. All the snow, as a result, seems to be enhance it. It leaves the picture out my window look like a charcoal drawing, with only spare lines of rooftops and branches of trees among the deep shadow of smudgy houses. It would make an interesting thing framed, but as a normal morning it isn't what I like to see.

But it is winter...and what can I do about it?

The romance and practicality of winter

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.

--Christina Rossetti

Sometimes I forget how much I adore Christina Rossetti poems. Originally I stumbled across her in a Lit Survey book--one of the works was a poem entitled Goblin Market. Not long after that I found a Dover Thrift Edition ($1.00) of an unabridged version of Goblin Market and Other Poems on a clearance table at the local bookstore.

Her work always makes me feel as if I should be curled in some hidden nook watching the world from behind leaded glass and reading. Although I have no leaded glass windows, I do have a very snowy winter Saturday before me. Knitting and listening to an audio book sounds like a great way to spend the day.

*******************

Well, at 8 am, light has finally come across to illuminate the overcast and very snowy morning. I shoveled the driveway around 7 am for the second time in 12 hours. Luckily it wasn't soooo bad this morning (meaning I had about three inches instead of six). However, since the snow continues I think it won't be another twelve hours before I must again shovel. The best news: it is a light dry snow and very easily removed.

Moon Report: 99% of full. full moon.

quick note

Moon Report: 90% full. waxing gibbous.

I love the astro-sciences. There are always cool things to discover that do well to remind us that we are just dots on the epic scale of the cosmos. Like the article I found today about stars.

There are three rules for writing the novel.

Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

--W. Somerset Maugham

My writing 1000 words per day is still ongoing. Not always am I faithful (even as a new resolution), but I do write more now than I have done in a long, long time. I like it.