THE BITTER COLD

You know what? It’s cold outside.

Big whoop.

That’s life, people. Sometimes it’s hot. Sometimes it’s cold. And sometimes you step outside in your boxer shorts to get the paper and think, “This is nice.”

Everywhere you turn the story is all about the weather. Coldest in a decade. Sub-zero temperatures. Brutal windchills drop to 30 below. Windburn. Frostbite. Hypothermia!

So what are we going to do? Stay inside?

No! Say it with me.

We’re going to put on our hats and gloves – just like we would if it were 10 degrees. Or 20. Or 30. Or 40, some of us. And we’re going to man up (or woman up, as the case may be). We’re going to shovel off our stairs. We’re going to scrape off our windshields. We’re going to get on with life.

If the news media weren’t reporting that it was so cold outside, do you know what you’d do? You’d put on more clothes. Somehow, we know when to put on more clothes. Like the native American Indians living in the northern plains for centuries knew to bundle up when that Arctic wind would come rolling through with a wintry vengeance, we know.

People have been living with cold for a long time. This is not the first time it has been cold. In fact, I seem to remember it being pretty damn cold in the not so distant past – a period historians are now referring to as LAST WINTER.

Cold weather in winter is not news. WARM weather in winter would be news. Then you’d have all these climate “experts” on television talking up global warming and citing the weather as evidence of a trend toward impending disaster. No one’s giving airtime to those cats these days, and they probably wouldn’t want it. Hard to pitch the dangers of melting ice caps with ice chunks stuck in your eyelashes.

For the record, I do believe in global warming.

But I also believe in global cooling. And right, now, this spot of the globe is definitely cooling. I don’t need meteorologists, special interest groups, news media, or even a thermometer to tell me that. All I need is to walk out onto my front porch in my boxers to get my paper.

“Nope…this is NOT nice. This is ice."

Better double up on the socks today.

GREAT MOMENTS IN HUMAN CREATIVITY

This is what a little creativity can do for your next party.

That's a cake under there. A moist, delicious cake.

Who wants the first piece?

I love the touches here. Sifter shovel spatula. Plastic bag wrapped around the cake. Cut out life-sized image of a startled cat. Melted Tootsie Rolls, finessed ever-so-gently to dangle like fecal sludge over the edges.

This is a well-executed masterpiece. A true triumph in human creativity.


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Thanks to the Harris Wheel for sharing this glorious box of treats.