Chilly, Baby

Gosh it's cold. I know this is winter and everything but what about Global Warming for goodness sake? I have heard nothing but Global Warming for years and yet, every winter in Kentucky seems progressively colder. The first year I was here I never even wore a winter coat. The year I was pregnant with Sam I not only didn't wear a coat but I wore no coat at the end of January in Chattanooga where I went to a wedding. We have pictures of me, seriously pregnant in short sleeves. What is going on with the temperature thing?

Wait, wait, don't tell me. It was a rhetorical question and I can just see you all now, primed to respond and tell me exactly how Global Warming works and how I am confused about what it means and at the earth's core there being all these little people who are right now shoveling some of our fossil fuel into a huge volcano that will one day erupt and the entire world will explode and if we happen to be home that day, well, we might be too hot. I guess we would all be toast then but I do understand from scientists that the cock roach will go on living under any circumstances we can imagine. I guess we leave the stuff to them in the will. Just in case, that is.

The more important question is how long will it be this cold and why is it that no matter what day of the week it is, one part of my church has a furnace unit that is not working? In the course of a ten day period we have lost a unit almost every day. Last Sunday it was my classroom, Monday it was the administration building, then it was the sanctuary, today it was the Fellowship Hall. It was a balmy 10 degrees outside and almost the warm inside. I am sure I saw icicles coming out of the coffee pot. I will admit that I am considering becoming of those conspiracy theory people, and believing the furnace guy and the weather guy have a deal going. Only I don't know if you have to apply for membership and if they make you wear one of those big badges saying, I believe in Area 51, I know where they buried Jimmy Hoffa and Jacqueline was in on the hit for JFK. This would bother me.

I have noticed in the cold nothing works all that well. Cars do strange things, water lines freeze up, people are less social, and I get very housebound. I keep thinking of all the places I need to be and I cannot seem to make myself go. I had to be at a concert last night so I made it a huge trip, to the recycling center, to the grocery store, to the post office, to the church, back home. I keep telling myself one more stop, one more stop, you will be home before you know it! Do you think it's at all possible that some of us were once bears and there is a hibernation gene in there trying to kick in? I say some of us because, if you are a subscriber to the evolution theory at all, you know people who clearly did descend from apes, and a few who once were woolly mammoths. Now that I ponder it, I am fairly sure some are in a direct line of those dinosaurs with the huge bodies and little heads.

So where is the redemption in the cold? I will tell you, it's in the people around me who make the best of it. I went to the coffee pot today, with a chisel just in case, and there was the sweetest man who looked at me with the dopiest grins and said, it sure makes the coffee taste great. The darling lady who came in with a fuzzy fur coat (do not write me letters)who looked darling and when complimented on her coat replied she had a great husband. What a precious thing to say. Or the very sweet old man, who has lost his wife this year, who gets up and comes to traditional worship because he thinks it makes me happy and said, it was hard this morning but I didn't want to disappoint you. Man. Hard to stay whiny after that, isn't it?

So I am putting on another layer, grumbling a little less and hoping that Spring will come in the proper season and until then the company will be this sweet always.