Blizzard Bliss

 Today seems like a good day to announce that this blog-o-vel will soon be approaching the equator.  Today is the best day, because so far today I’ve spent 2 hours shoveling snow.  By the end of my last round of shoveling, my clothes were soaked through and I was frozen to the bone.

It was wonderful.  I haven’t been that thoroughly cold, wet, and entertained by the snow for a very long time.  As much as I’ll be pleased if this is the last big storm I have to shovel, I was glad to have one more big day this year.  

Hot Cocoa is 20% more enjoyable on days when you're cold*. 

I’m reminded of a time approximately 10 years ago when I was traveling with a very good friend of mine.  She and I had been living in a desert climate where temperatures often soared above 100 °F (37 °C).  I can’t tell you for certain what the temperature was; it was so hot that all of the thermometers being sold in the local bazaars had broken because the climate exceeded their heat tolerance.  Community members told stories boasting temperatures over 50 °C, which seemed a tad hyperbolic.  Later, I scoured internet records and find at least one day there was a recording of 55 °C (131 °F).  That’s hot.  My little temperate brain never learned words that adequately describe that kind of heat.

She and I had dreamt of cooler temperatures.  We’d been in the heat so long that we couldn’t even imagine anymore what it would feel like to be cool.  We wished for it.  We dreamt of it without really being able to conceptualize it anymore.  Then we crossed a border. 

We had left the desert and it happened to be monsoon season in one of our destinations.  Neither of us had fully researched the local weather patterns and - it only being the first storm - we decided to push on through the rain.  In a mad dash we raced through the mud and the torrent of water and arrived sopping wet, covered in red clay at the border crossing just as the rain petered out.  It had stopped raining 30 minutes after it had begun.  Apparently that was the norm.  Clear all day.  30 minute cloud burst in the afternoon.  Clear or cloudy in the evening.  Brave tourists that we were, we carried on despite the monsoon and arrived 5 minutes before the rest of the border crossers, just that we arrived a hot mess.

Once we got to the other side, we found a cab and paid our fare to head back to the capitol. That’s where we encountered it.  Glorious.  Idyllic.  Air Conditioning.  It had been so long since either of us had been cool.  It was a marvel.  For a solid 15 minutes in the back of the cab we celebrated.  For the next 15 minutes we relaxed and enjoyed, and for the following 3.5 hours we froze. 

When we finally arrived at our destination, I couldn’t stop shivering and remember being so cold that my muscles ached, and it was hard to get out of the car.  She and I talked after the car ride and there were two things keeping us miserable for those 3.5 hours.  One was a very real language barrier.  The cab driver imagined himself a fluent English speaker, but neither of us was able to understand him nor he us.  That was really only a half excuse though as she and I are both adept at communicating even when we do not share a common language with the other person. The real reason we both sat in pain in that car, with very real physical responses to the cold, was that we knew it could be a very long time before we experienced such a marvelous chill again.

It is with this story in mind, that I try not to wish away the last remaining chill before heading to 2+ years of equatorial bliss.  

 *not a real statistic 

Sights and Sounds

Hanging out in an old (mostly abandoned) mining town, I often come across neat little treasures of a time gone by.  Now that the weather has started to warm up a bit, the windows are open bringing in the sights and sounds of the town around me.

Yesterday, as I sat at my table writing, I heard what sounded like a shift change bell.  I thought that it was rather odd that the shifts change here at 2pm, but also thought it was nice that some of the local factories still use the old bells.  It creates a neat atmosphere of times gone by and still serves a functional purpose.

Today as I sat writing and heard the bells again, a friend of mine went running to the window, "Der Eiswagen!"  Apparently what I was hearing wasn't the end of a shift at all.  It was the ice cream truck.  A steady electronic bell sound, reminiscent of the bell signaling the end of a school day is played as the truck drives down the road.  The bell lacks any real festivity or lightness to it.  I thought perhaps that is mostly due to the sentiment that I have placed on the sounds of the ice cream trucks where I grew up.  I quickly located a YouTube video to demonstrate the jaunty Turkey in the Straw melody I was more accustomed to.

Apparently here, that's the kind of tune that is used to let the old men who recycle copper and other metals know that the collection truck is on its way!