A New Personal Low

I don’t know if my readers have been exposed to the media (which is like being exposed to malaria) but the weather has been rather interesting lately. Yeah, sure interesting.  Lets call it that. Or maybe these: Exciting. Extreme. Invigorating.

Harrumph! I can’t do it. It’s verbal nonsense trying to sum up this kind of cold snap in a single word. The weather has been more than a minor hindrance. It has been a gold plated pain in my ass.

This isn’t my first rodeo. I know that “cold snap” is not Armageddon. I’ve ridden them out before and will ride them out again. However, at a certain temperature, quantity has it’s own quality. It becomes the most important thing happening right at that moment. For me, the cutoff is somewhere near -30.

When the temperature hits around -30 (Fahrenheit) all forward motion in my life stops. We here at Curmudgeon compound go from “keep on truckin'” to “hunker down and stay wary”. It’s just common sense.

Also, I don’t want to hear any puffed chest bravado from folks who think they’re tough and tell stupid stories that deny simple facts of physics and nature; “In my day we played pond hockey in t-shirts at -80. Millenials should be out there playing lacrosse in a blizzard or they’re just wimps.” WRONG! Even Paul Buynan knew when to sit by the fire and wait. Either you have a faulty memory or you’re a dumbass who barely escaped the clutches of Darwin.

Somewhere around -30 is when the technological accoutrements of civilization begin to fail. I don’t care if you’re a mountain man messing with oil lamps, a homesteader trying to keep the chicken waterer thawed, a suburban commuter jump starting your Honda, or a hipster barista whining because your Amazon delivery is delayed… at some temperature it’s no longer “routine”.

Vehicles stop starting. This is the best barometer. It happens according to a predictable progression of brand names. Starting somewhere with Dodge and Chevy and chewing its way up the reliability ladder until a Honda is dead. If a Honda won’t start you’d better watch your ass!  (Note: Mrs. Curmudgeon’s Honda needed a jump start. That means I jumped up and went out there with a battery charger to get it started.)

Once you start whatever machinery you’ve got, you must fret over what you’re doing to it merely by using it in that weather. There’s a heightened risk you’ll break expensive plastic bits off the dash. Why? Because cars have plastics and rubber seals and grommets and shit. If it’s too cold for the material in question, things get tense. Ask the guys from the Space Shuttle Challenger about brittle materials.

All week long, everything (including me!) was near the limits of its design criteria. I could almost feel the power grid groan under the strain. The woodstove and furnace worked 24/7 but the house’s insulation wasn’t up to the task. (My farmhouse is not very modern.)  It’s just the nature of the situation: Pipes freeze, trees are “popping” in the forest, obsessively counting livestock is due diligence, and (in my case) my lungs ached every time I was outdoors.

Some folks might not get the whole “everything stops for a while” zeitgeist. Here’s a hint; if you’re checking every water fixture every two hours to make sure the pipes are still thawed you’re not free to focus on the normal tasks of an average day. This isn’t to say other places don’t have their own drama. Nobody’s mowing the lawn the day before a hurricane hits Key West; they’re nailing up plywood and wishing they lived in Kentucky.

I decided to get photos of my outside thermometer as a bit of photojournalism. Sadly I’m still recovering from bronchitis. Every time I ventured a few feet beyond the back door I’d have a coughing fit. Life is like that.

I started taking screenshots of weather reports. This was kinda’ lame but it’s the only idea I had. Then my dog pointed out OPSEC failure I was courting, so I wound up with cropped numbers that mean nothing to nobody. Enjoy:

This went on for quite a while. Days sorta’ blended into each other. Eventually it went just below the coldest I’ve ever personally witnessed.

You know how I rip on people who tell bullshit exaggerations? I hate those people:

“This is nothing, I remember once it was -70.”

“You live in Houston.”

“It’s not the cold, it’s the humidity.”

“Fuck off.”

In my never ending desire to counteract fake news, I very carefully remember actual facts. The fact is that once I stood in front of my outside thermometer and it read -40. It was a real honest -40 and not some windchill inflation “feels like” voodoo. It was the genuine article. If I’ve ever been in colder weather I didn’t document it.

Last week there was a morning when it was colder than my previous low. Mrs. Curmudgeon was up and sipping coffee. She was sitting within 10 feet of the fire and wisely planned to stay right there. I tried to take a hot shower and it was tepid. Our hot water heater just couldn’t make the water hot enough. (I hate cold showers!)

After my shower Mrs. Curmudgeon mentioned that it had been -42. The dog had refused to go outside and probably wouldn’t take a dump until March.

-42?!? Wow. I threw on eleven layers of clothes and ventured out to verify it on my physical thermometer. The sun had just risen. It might already be “warming up”! I endured my obligatory coughing fit (bronchitis is a bitch) and then snapped a photo.

Damn! It was already a little warmer. With the first sun’s rays it had “heated up” all the way to about -35. No “new low” photo for me. I didn’t bother to get a screenshot from the media either. I was focused on “real world verification”. I didn’t care about the nearest airport, I cared about my backyard.

Back in the house I complained to Mrs. Curmudgeon. “Darn it,” I groused, “no photo. You know what they say; pics or it didn’t happen. I missed a new personal low. I wish you’d taken a photo.”

“Take a photo?” She growled, “Go fuck yourself!”

Yeah, my bad. I had it coming. Two personal lows in 20 minutes. I’ll be a lot nicer from now on; or at least until it thaws.