Cold

I never really understood what cold was until I lived in Iowa.

In Arkansas, 30 degrees was cold. 28 degrees was really cold. If the temperature ranged in the teens, you'd better hope your pantry was stocked, because you weren't leaving the house.

In San Francisco, it stayed chilly for a lot of the year. In fact, most apartments there did not have air conditioners, only central heating. There was hardly any use for an AC. I froze in SF. I dreaded watching that legendary, that beautiful fog roll over the mountains. I knew what seeing that fog meant. Chilliness.

And then I went from chilly to downright cold. Real cold. The honest-to-goodness, real-deal kind of cold. The kind of cold that made me long for temps in the teens.

I moved to Iowa in January of 2003. My brother drove Chicken Nugget and me from SF to Winterset. When we drove through Tahoe and the Sierra Nevadas, I marvelled that so much snow could exist in one place. When we drove through the Wasach Mountains in Utah, Matt pulled over so that we could take pictures knee-deep in snow. If only I'd known . . .

Not only did so much snow exist in one place, it continued to exist. For months. It was cold, ya'll. I spent that first winter learning that hats and gloves are a must, that my child needed a snowsuit and moon boots, and that when you get a note on your car telling you to move it from the curb, you'd better do so. Else you'd find that the snowplow had just buried your car in about five feet of snow.

It made me a nervous wreck to think of driving in that stuff. It was insane. I learned the art of it, of creeping and of turning your wheel in the opposite direction when the car began to slide. WHEN the car began to slide. Never IF it did.

Oh, and as for running - yeah. I used to run in SF. Because, although chilly there, you could run year-round. You could always be outside. The stores sold specialty clothing for running in the rain, and even when it was chilly, mostly it was pleasantly chilly. Perfect for getting out there and getting your blood pumping.

Not in Iowa in January.

I told Buffalo Wings I'd go running. He said I'd fall down. I insisted he was just silly. I had good shoes. He said, "Yeah . . . you're going to fall down."

I ran about half a block. My rear was wet and sore. I had fallen down.

That first winter, CN and I lived in a cute little studio apartment in Winterset. Chicken Nugget saw the snow on the porch, and wanted to take the snow inside and keep it. I tried to explain . . . in the end, I put some in a baggie and let her keep it in the freezer. Until she realized that the snow would keep coming back. For a long time.

Oh, and when it snows, it doesn't matter. School still goes on. The doctor's offices stay open. It's almost as if nothing had happened, even with snow drifts 5 feet or higher along the road. Crazy stuff.

Then we moved to Albert City, which is a town in Iowa that's about three hours South of Minneapolis. Ya'll, it was way cold. I used to walk CN to her preschool, which was about half a block from our house. One morning, we went out, CN all snow-suit-and-moon-boot-clad, me with my trusty hat, gloves, and scarf . . . and it was 30 below zero. No, I'm not joking. It was.

A few days later, CN and I left to walk to preschool, and it was warm! The sun was shining! It wasn't snowing! I even left my coat behind! Buffalo Wings came home that afternoon, and I exclaimed about the warmth of the day! It must have been about 50 degrees outside, I said. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Honey," he said, "It was 25 degrees outside."

At last, his wife had gained perspective on the cold.

However, if you think about it, going from 30 below to 25 that quickly really is something like a heatwave.

It snowed that Mother's Day of my second year in Iowa. I was like, "No. It's not snowing on Mother's Day. It's May."
But yeah, it totally did.

Our first year down here in Texas, we had a bit of a cold snap early in the fall. I don't know, like 45 degrees or something overnight. I took CN to school and felt like a bad mom. CN was the only one who was just in a jacket and not in a parka with gloves, hat, and scarf.

I write this post today because it is cold in Texas. This morning, it's something like 35 and raining. Everyone's shivering and puddle-jumping. I'm telling everyone that it isn't supposed to be like this in Texas.

I heard a song the other day that cracked me up. I don't know who it was by, and I can't find the lyrics anywhere on the Internet, but it went something like, "Oh, there's no white Christmases in Houston!" I laughed and laughed. The first year we were here, it "snowed" on Christmas Eve. It was a light dusting, basically. But everyone loved it.

I remember when my friend Boss saw her first Arkansas "snow." She scoffed and told us that it wasn't "real" snow. Now I understand, Boss. I really, really do.

That's the first and last time I've seen snow down here. I'd venture to say that this year will be void of any white stuff as well.

I'll be spending Christmas in Arkansas this year. The kids look forward to some colder weather. But, anymore, I've come to realize that "cold" really is all about perspective. And, cold-hater that I am, I'll be shivering right along with everyone else in Arkansas.