The temperatures around the mid-west these days are going to require a bit of masculinity regardless of your actual gender. The Missus fielded a phone call from the county sheriff's office notifying us of the closing of county offices and the usual warnings and alerts. When you get to be my age, you've been through some cold weather so you should know how to dress and plan ahead. Plus, if you drove a car from the 50's or 60's, you never had better than a 50/50 chance of the thing starting when it got this cold. Block and dipstick heaters, heat lamps, set the alarm and start the car during the night so it never had a chance to cool completely down - whatever it took to be able to get to work in the morning.
One of the great things about teaching was school closings on the real cold days. Now, however, the state mandates the days be made up. Kind of takes the fun out of it, knowing you get a day off when the temperature is too cold to do anything but sit around the house and then have to go back in at the end of the year when the weather is nice and the students have absolutely no interest in being there. The one year at the high school they were looking at rescheduling graduation and there was all kind of grief due to the fact many of the seniors had their announcements already printed, venues rented for parties and relatives had airline tickets that were going to have to be exchanged. The following year they added a couple of days to the schedule that became vacation days unless they needed them as makeup days.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday shoveling and plowing, most of the day today riding the recliner and I'm looking at a repeat the next couple of days. I might start working on organizing the box of tax receipts but nothing outside except fetching the mail and checking on the chicken. I picked a good time to retire it looks like. For those of you who do have to venture out, be safe. You don't want to get caught short in this weather.
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