Cold as Hell...

...not hot, and with a generous helping of salt.

It's been below zero for about 5 days running and at least 3 people have died -- 1 in her unheated apartment, another in his backyard and a homeless person who was sleeping outside.

I can understand how the cold gets you in your sleep. When it's this cold, I don't want to set my feet down on the floorboards for anything and it's tempting just to curl up in a nest of blankets and drift off... If a person didn't have heat, I imagine it would be even more tempting to burrow in the blankets and drift off...

They've also converted this city into a giant salt flat. It looks like what Marquez described in The Autumn of the Patriarch, when El Benefactor sells the ocean to the gringos and all that's left is the smell of the sea like a longing, and a giant salt bed. Only it was tropical and balmy there. Now when I get into my car after work, my lips taste like salt. The bottoms of my shoes are gritty with salt. I wonder who stole my fins, my ocean and left me with this devil of a white city. There are even giant salt hills on random corners -- but it's been too cold to snow.

The cold also causes longing -- you long for a warm body to put your feet against, you long for the rosy dawn of spring... and carbohydrates. I crave carbs so much when it's cold. Yesterday my entire caloric intake was supplied by toast -- with PB & J, with honey, or with Nutella.

The good news is the panic I had whipped myself into in December re: unseasonably warm weather and global warming occuring much sooner than the most dire of predictions, probably was just a panic. It's like a second chance to pull our heads out of our asses and change things NOW before winter does disappear forever.

Also, it's snowing -- a salt shaker sprinkle ... but the start of a snow shower. While I don't understand the exact scientific principle, I do know that in order to snow it has to be warmer than it was these last several days. (I'll bet it warms up to at least 10 degrees F!!!)