Misery Loves Company

Brrrrrr. It’s bitter cold here. Arctic. Sub-zero. The temps have not gotten above the negatives in 48 hours. I kid you not. It’s been record-breaking. It was colder here yesterday than it was at the North Pole. I am not making that up. It is a fact, according to Tom Skilling, our trusty weatherman. It was –21 this morning. –21!! I’ve lived in Chicagoland since I was 5, and I cannot remember it ever being this freezing.

The schools have been closed for two days straight. On Day#1 of School Closings it was mildly exciting, and I had rose-colored fantasies of our family playing board games by the fire in our pjs while eating homemade caramel corn. Our day didn’t unfold exactly that way, but it was peaceful, nonetheless. Now it is Day#2 and we are ready to kill each other. We must see the mercury rise higher, or it will not be pretty around here.

My boys and I threw hot water into the air off the back deck after breakfast, and watched it sprinkle down as snow. And that was it for my scientific entertainment. It was all the energy I could muster. This forced-hibernation is making me lazy and sluggish and causing me to spend long hours wasting time on Facebook; browsing through acquaintances’ pictures and looking up long-lost high school friends. But in an attempt to be productive, I’m also cooking soups and reading good books and cleaning out messy drawers. Nevertheless, I’m going stir-crazy.

Thank the dear Lord for friends that are willing to meet me for dinner or drinks, despite the horridly frigid temps. I would never have survived the long winters as a 19th Century Prairie Wife, with no other log cabins in close proximity! Honestly. I would have gone insane. Thankfully I can share my cold-weather misery with my mutually gloomy besties, and we can bond in our desolation. It’s a beautiful thing.