The cold...

[susandennis]

We have no snow and no freezing cold.  We have gray skies.  It's Seattle!

Seeing all of the news reports of the freeze in other parts of the country does remind me of my winters in Rochester, MN.  I learned to tell when it was below zero by the way the hairs in my nose felt.  My condo had a heated garage but work was a giant outdoor parking lot which was known as Alligator Alley in the winter time.  The deal was that if you got into your car and the battery was dead, you were to get out and raise the hood.  Battery charger guys roamed the parking lot looking for hoods up.  On a really cold day, when you looked down a row of cars, it could look like a bunch of alligators. 

My day started a couple of hours before everyone else's so I always got a parking spot near the door.  Once when I went back several years later to help out on a project, they had implemented No Smoking in the building and I had to go out in 15 below temperatures to have a cigarette.  That was interesting.

But, in general, I did not mind the cold at all.  It meant the snow really really wasn't going to melt and I liked coats and sweaters and boots and gloves.  The only downside I can remember was that Minneapolis was a treat of a day trip normally.  But, in winter, it was too dangerous. The road was about 50 miles long with nothing on it and if you ran into trouble you'd freeze before you could figure out what to do.  Cellphones would have totally eliminated that problem.