Ice Age

We’ve entered the ice age.

For the past several days, we’ve had a cold snap and awful storms. According to the locals, that is because someone died. Two someones, actually. (It was old age.) They believe that when anyone dies, the weather turns colder. And so it did. We’ve had almost non-stop snow, and often blizzard conditions for a week now.

But before we realized the cold snap was here, we were still feeling a bit cocky about our spring weather. The temperature had hit double digits. The sun was shining. It was beautiful outside.

For some hare-brained reason, I decided to dress up the other day. Blame it on Spring Fever, or idiocy, or whatever—I wanted a change. So instead of PJs-robe-and-wool-socks or jeans-and-sweaters or any other outfit that would make sense in our neck of the woods, I put on a light cotton skirt and a t-shirt. No long johns—just bare legs. Inside, that may be kind of alright. But we were hoping for a package, so an outing to the post office was in order. Taco suggested I put on pants—but like I said, I was feeling rather cocky. I responded with, “It’s beautiful outside!” He shrugged, and off we went.

Well, I wasn’t ten feet from the front door before I admitted that maybe the skirt was a mistake. The wind was blowing, whipping right through my clothes. It was rather unpleasant.

Being a Saturday, the post office was only open for a couple of hours—and the woman often closes early just because. So I didn’t want to take time to run in and change. I also wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to get out (excitement is hard to find around here), so like an idiot, I just “pressed on.”

I didn’t realize how far away the post office is—I thought it was just up the trail a bit. But judging from that trip, it must be 100 miles away. And the trip back was even longer. The temperature had plummeted and the wind was really whipping. By the time I got home, I was purple with cold from head to toe. So I wrapped up in several layers of blankets and sat there shivering. And the kicker was, we hadn’t even gotten a package.

A few days later, Taco was at the school for testing. You know those stupid twice-a-year tests they make the kids take? Well, even though he is home schooled, he had to participate. And sure enough, when the temperatures were back into the negatives, the boiler decided to break down. Those poor teachers and kids about froze. They couldn’t cancel school, because they are required by the state to give the tests on a particular day.

Few people come to school dressed in winter gear, because they have the silly expectation that once they get inside, they will actually be warm. The ones who live near the school (like our son) will just wear a sweatshirt for the quick run there. So those poor kids who were supposed to be concentrating on the test sat there, bouncing in their seat and blowing on their hands trying to keep warm. Some of them even got up and hopped around the room in an attempt to get their blood flowing. (Since it was the essay section of the test, there was no concern of cheating.) Gee—I wonder if frozen brains is an excuse for low test scores.

It has hardly stopped snowing here for a week now, and at times we’ve had blizzards raging—heavy snow and howling winds. There are nights when the house shakes, rattles, and groans. I’m sure we are being blown off the map and all the way to Oz. But we must be taking a wrong turn somewhere because I have yet to see the Emerald City. Personally, I’d love a bit of green. We keep landing in the Diamond Dump where everything is white, icy, and cold.