This week, we are going through the early "death wish" stage of toddlerhood. Tiny is happiest upside down, preferably dangling off of furniture. We are doing our best to keep her alive, despite her apparent wishes. Meanwhile, Kiddo is helpful when the mood takes her, but is a bit sullen, too. I wish both of them were as interested in sleep as I am.
Fuzzy showed me a weather report from Cincinnati the other day, and joked about how happy I must be that we don't live there anymore. To be fair, we would have found our way through it if we still were there, though I have to imagine the last twelve years would have had ups and downs. I always joke that snow is the natural disaster you can shovel, preferable to floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and tornados, but I really feel for a good portion of the areas that are currently being snowed on.
We live in a magical part of California that has microclimates even within cities. When Fuzzy went to school in the city, he kept an arsenal of warm clothes in his trunk, as it could be seventy-five and sunny at home, and fifty and rainy at school, twenty miles away. In the Midwest, we joke that if you don't like the weather, you can wait five minutes. Out here, if you don't like the weather, you can drive for five minutes. As a whole, though, this is not an area that requires heavy-duty heating or warmth plans. My mother notices it every time she visits--high ceilings, big windows, tile floors, slab foundations. I have been in several homes out here with wall-unit heaters that would be hard pressed to heat a home more than about ten degrees.
Many of the areas being hit right now have similar issues in housing. The houses in my hometown in Michigan are built for the cold, with basements, large amounts of insulation, and mighty heating systems. The houses I saw in Texas the last time I visited did not appear to have those things. It reminds me of some of the warmth methods I taught Fuzzy when we lived in Ohio.
When it's really cold, roll up a towel and shove it against the bottom of the doors to the outside. Close all your curtains when the sun is not shining, and put something up over blinds to keep heat in--feel free to go tacky and use mattress pads, blankets, or towels if necessary. Only heat your house to sixty-five or seventy, so the grid is more likely to have something for the people in your neighborhood who need more. Wear a sweater and hearty socks in the house. Make hot, heavy food like cream soups or chili to keep your insides warm for a longer time. Drape a blanket over your lap when sitting. Tuck your hands into the opposite sleeve cuffs to get your hands warm. If you have forced-air heat, spend time in your smaller rooms, as they are more likely to have additional heat.
Stay home if you can swing it, because inexperienced drivers in snow and ice conditions are hazards to everyone around them. If you have to go out, clear off the entire car, including the roof, and don't move until your defroster has done its job. Throw a blanket in, just in case you have to wait for help somewhere, and consider a small shovel and a bit of kitty litter to help you get yourself out of trouble (the litter is for traction, not potty emergencies). Stick to the main roads, which are more likely to have had some maintenance, and don't do anything sudden--don't make sudden turns or stops, and accelerate incrementally. Four-wheel drive is not four-wheel stop, and it can get you far enough in the ditch that your neighbors don't see you.
One of the real reasons that people from the northernmost parts of the United States are so friendly and community-minded is that they have to depend on each other, especially in the winter storms, when police will put out notices that minor accidents without injuries will have to be reported later, as all services are overwhelmed dealing with major accidents and other problems. In small towns, the person driving by you in the ditch will often make the call to the tow truck for you once they get cell signal again. If they recognize your car and they can safely stop, they'll pick you up and take you home.
My family has a blanket that has spent almost its entire life in cars. It's made of quarter inch thick wool, is the kind of itchy that makes you reconsider all your life choices, and appears to have survived both World Wars. It's a shade of grey-beige that brings the military to mind, and not necessarily our military. It's more likely that it came into our lives via the Boy Scouts, but all my memories of it place it in the trunk of my parents' cars, just in case we got stuck in the snow somewhere. We had stacks of blankets in the house, too, and we sometimes slept under four of them to keep warm, but that blanket was our lifeline if we got stuck in the car.
This is not fun, but it's also not going to last forever. For now, eschew dignity and fashion for warmth. Wear the prairie nightgown you received as a gag gift, and wear a hoodie over it. Go to bed early, so you can read a book under a drift of quilts. Layer cardigans. Wear two pairs of socks. Try wearing leggings under your clothes. Be safe, and we'll see you in warmer times. Soon. I promise not to mock you from over here, and I won't tell you what the temperature is.
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