Not #Bloganuary Day 16, But Answering the Question, Sort Of

What is a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I didn’t write the post for Bloganuary Day 16 because I felt passionate that day about absolutely nothing except not writing the post. It happens.

Tomorrow I shall be passionate about the weather.

It was 77(F) degrees today. Tomorrow morning, it will be 33(F) degrees. Or 27(F), depending on which website you’re looking at. There will be light precipitation, possibly sleet, or not. Streets might be icy or might not. The high will be 39(F) or 40(F) or something like that.

My husband and I have appointments for our second Covid booster at 10:00 a.m. I’m hoping for non-icy streets, because I’d really like to get that booster.

Yesterday and today I went outside wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. Tonight I went through my closet looking for the warmest clothes I have. I planned to wear a sleeveless cotton shell under a long-sleeved shirt, something from which I could easily produce a bare arm–this is a drive-through booster.

The closet wasn’t promising. When I downsized before the last move, a lot of clothes went to the Salvation Army. I bought several pairs of wool slacks when we drove to New York City the Christmas of 2000, but got rid of them after a few warm winters. The heaviest slacks I have aren’t really heavy and may be too long–as in, I’m going to take these somewhere and have them hemmed up--but that was before Covid hit and I retreated into my cave.

At this point I don’t care how long the slacks are. I’ll roll the cuffs if necessary. I may wear my sweats over them.

I have sweaters–I love sweaters–plus a heavy, baggy chenille thing I wear over light sweaters. And I have my old Denali sweatshirt. But how many layers can a needle get through before it reaches skin? And how many layers can I divest myself of while waiting in line?

Some (many) people who are used to below-zero cold laugh at Texans’ inability to deal with above-zero (what we consider cold) weather, ice, and snow.

It isn’t the cold per se that we get wound up about. It’s the rapid drop in temperature.

And the icy streets and bridges. We’re not equipped with sand and salt to keep cars from sliding into objects they shouldn’t slide into. Nor do we know how to drive in those conditions. There’s an art to it.

I don’t possess the art. The one time I tried it, I slid off the highway and ended up in a ditch facing the wrong direction. Across from my father’s place of work. So embarrassing. He was stationed in Pennsylvania for a while during World War II and then drove across Northern Europe. He knew what to do. He drove the car out of the ditch and took me to the university, which is what he’d wanted to do in the first place. (“Don’t worry. I can drive myself.”)

Fortunately, my husband comes from cold country and has experience in getting around. I put my nose in a book and try not to think about it.

Well, whatever. This isn’t new. Sometimes, as my mother said, there’s nothing between us and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence.

And it’s common knowledge that if you don’t like Texas weather, just wait a while.

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P.S. If this turns out to be like last February’s storm, when my neighborhood was selected for a power outage that lasted six days, and my husband went to Lowe’s every morning to buy ten 2x4s to burn in a fireplace designed to look charming rather than to emit heat, I shall not say Whatever. I shall pack my bags and move to El Paso, where a connection to the New Mexico power grid keeps the lights on. Or so I’ve heard. There’s only so much John Wayne-Rugged Individualism that this native Texan can take.

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Image by Claudia Trapp from Pixabay