Friday, January 8, 2010

Down, Down, Down

It feels strange to sit in the den window looking out on the patio, from morning into afternoon, as the temperature drops from 32°F at the moment to its predicted low of 20°F tonight.


And I tend to believe it will get that low. Why? Samantha loves to sit on a big green ottoman Stella placed in that window for her enjoyment, staring out at everything going on behind the house... stirring creatures (probably including mice), rustling dead leaves, clanging wind chimes and flapping cloth kitty banners, all driven by wind, wind and more wind, almost every day since we've moved here... but not today. Today, Samantha abandoned her post as too cold to be worth the trouble, moving to a fleece blanket on a bed against an interior wall. That's what kind of night... what kind of weekend... we have in store.

13 comments:

  1. 20F? Bloody Hell Steve that's colder than here and it's cold by London standards

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  2. jams, they're now saying it'll be 19°F. Bloody hell, indeed, for people like me... Stella's not much better... who don't suffer cold weather gladly. Fortunately, this time, it's only three days of it.

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  3. /looks guiltily about after swearing at the 70+ degrees Southern California has had for weeks...

    I bet I'll be proved right... our winter was the two days of slight frost we had and now we're into our usual not-summer weather.

    We might even have some RAIN next week... pleasepleaseplease!! Droughts are not fun.

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  4. ellroon, don't mind your freezing friend's
    Lugubrious self-pity;
    Don't think, oh my, he's at an end!
    Just concentrate on Kitty...

    She does top-secret work for Steve;
    For years, with him she's hung out,
    She knows with whom he'd rub a sleeve...
    And when he'd stick his tongue out!

    - SB the YDD/YSS

    (If you haven't looked at the large version of the pic, be sure to do so. Samantha has captured quite well my reaction to your not-summer weather! :-) )

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  5. yay! doggerel!

    and i love the photo. that's pretty close to how we all feel here in sunny [ha!] florida.

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  6. Thanks, hipparchia! At just about 1:00 A.M., we have 27°F (-3°C). Some (but not much) wind; no messy precip AFAICT. Warm in the house, despite all odds.

    What are y'all down to?

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  7. we are down to brrrrr. we are down to it's so cold even the dog doesn't want to stay out for very long. we are down to the heater keeps coming on and i don't want to see my next electric bill.

    i have no idea what this translates to in degrees, and i suspect i'll only feel worse if i should find out.

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  8. hipparchia, heating bills pass; lifetime weather experiences don't. I still remember the 5°F (yes 5) winter storm when I lived in a house that literally had grass growing up through the cracks in the guest bedroom between the floor and the wall. That one, unbelievably, cracked the harpsichord soundboard, and just about broke the bank with the gas bill, though it still never brought the indoor temp above about 60... and I still treasure the memory. For a moment, forget the bills; you and the dozen critters hold on to the memories.

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  9. Lugubrious self-pity.... this is a phrase I'm going to work into my next conversation..:D!

    I know I've not experienced the level of cold you guys are enduring right now, but my (Southern California born and bred) son's in Vienna at the moment and learning all about winter weather.

    (He sent me that link...)

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  10. ellroon, Vienna's a great place to learn about winter. Actually, Vienna's a great place to learn about a great many things; I spent only a week there in 1978 (it was mostly a working summer for me in southeastern Austria, based in Graz) but I still have fond memories of side trips to Wien and Salzburg.

    It's still cold here; this will be the 4th sub-freezing night in a row, for the first time I can remember in my more than six decades living here. All the sunshine is kind of nice, though. And tomorrow, supposedly, we get a break. So far, the heating system and the food and booze supplies are holding up, so I have few complaints.

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  11. Samantha the thermometer:) Smart kitty!

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  12. OWL, I keep expecting Samantha to follow the lead of Edward Lear's classic limerick about an old man of the coast, who "called for some hot buttered toast." But I doubt it's toast Samantha would call for!

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  13. If that throw has a lion's head on it, I have a half cats sharing Sam's disdain for the temperature.

    We have been dipping below 20° a couple of nights, but we have also had almost a constant wind that makes it worse.

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