Cold.
My fingers, my toes
And especially my nose.

Cold.
The floor, the toilet seat,
The water when I brush my teeth.

Cold.
The air that stings my chapped, dry skin
When I get out of the car—garage door opener’s on strike again.

Cold.
The Hubby’s mood when I wedge my frosty feet
Between his warm (and famous) knees.

Cold.
I can hardly wait till Summer’s here
So I can complain to all who can hear—

—about heat….

Yes, it is still cold. And I am still whining about the fact that it is cold. What’s more, we were supposed to get more snow this week—THEY promised us snow—and we didn’t. What good is cold without snow? Good for getting out of a nice warm bed and dragging the children to school in the cold, that’s what.

I have a lovely contingent of Great White Northward friends (both the contingent and the friends are lovely, in case you were looking for clarification) who say (with what I think is just a hint of sarcasm) “You should move to Canada.”

No, I’m fairly certain I shouldn’t. Maybe I could spend summers there, when it’s…oh, say…113degrees here in North Texas. Sure, then I’d take it.

I mean, I come from Canadian ancestry, tough Kanuck stock. You’d think I’d be genetically predisposed to dealing with the cold. Makes sense to me. The fact that my father drove a race car has always allowed me to believe I’m genetically predisposed to be an awesome driver. Which I totally am. In racing, the occasional wreck is all part of the sport.

But cold, no. Didn’t get those genes. I don’t know that any of my ancestors came from anywhere particularly known for temperate weather. English, Scotch (neat, thank you), German, Swiss, French, French-Canadian… Maybe my French ancestors came from the French Riviera—it’s warm there, right?

Of course, the irony is that I don’t like hot weather, either. When I was younger, I preferrred cold weather to hot—-because, I reasoned, you can always put on more clothes or blankets, but when it’s hot—well, you can only take so much off before it’s just you and your sweat. And then you’re still hot.

But the older I get, the more cold is not just uncomfortable, but downright painful (and evidently I’m getting older by the minute if the fact that I just used the word “downright” in a sentence is any indication). My nose actually hurts. My fingers and toes get so cold that every little stub and bump is magnified a hundredfold. The base of my spine actually hurts when I walk out the door and that first shock of cold air hits me. And my back is in spasms from the constant shivering.

I have tried the “put on more clothes and blankets.” I have slept in a shirt beneath a sweater beneath a heavy winter robe, with thick fleece pajama pants, socks (two pair), and houseshoes, under a blanket (which I wrap underneath my double-socked, houseshoed feet) and a sheet and a bedspread and another heavy blanket, only to realize that the blankets are just insulating my cold feet like a koozie wrapped around an icy Shiner Bock. Not that my feet are bock; they’d be more Shiner Blonde, but I prefer Bock, so I’m stickin’ with it. And no amount of bundling and blanketing has as of yet resolved the icy nose problem.

I happened to have a brainstorm one frosty night, realizing that the rice-sock heating pads (long tube socks. Fill with plain–not instant–white rice. Tie end. Microwave 3 min. You can thank me later.) could be molded around my face, providing much needed warmth in the central area where my nose is known to reside, without actually surrounding me in a carbon-dioxide cocoon of death. But then my kids came over and said, “Cool—you found our rice socks! Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!” So now the 14 year old has my shiny blue iPod AND my rice sock….

…which I am totally about to go swipe now that I’m sure she’s sound asleep….

Tags: blankets, Canada, cold, freezing, poetry, Shiner, The Hubby