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ColdDecember 05, 2006 This morning there was ice in Rhodry's outside water dish. Yesterday, after a night of pretty heavy rain, the front steps were thinly coated in ugly slush. I remembered just in time that I'd forgotten how to walk on slippery surfaces: without a hand on the banister my feet might have reached the gravel before my bum. This is not abnormal weather for early December in these parts, but last week the temps were in the mid-60s -- some swear "high," and I even heard one report of 71 degrees (shut your mouth!). Was it global warming, or was it just weird? Being a born and bred New Englander, I muttered that it was unnatural and here's hoping we don't have to pay for it later. Mind you, I like winter, even though I probably wouldn't last long in Saskatchewan or Minnesota: around Halloween I'd be checking fares to New Zealand. I'm steady enough on my feet to handle ice and snow, and I've been driving in the stuff as long as I've been driving. Tesah Toyota had four-wheel drive; Uhura Mazda doesn't, which caused some complications last winter but some ballast in the bed gets me through most of the worst of a Martha's Vineyard winter. If I lived farther north, or farther from the moderating effects of the ocean, I'd insist on 4WD and 6 or 8 cylinders -- if I had enough money, that is. Yesterday I went riding in late afternoon, late enough that I got back in the dark. It's shotgun season, two weeks this year instead of the usual one, so we all stay out of the woods. Rhodry, Allie, and I set off down the Stoney Hill Road, and before I'd gone a hundred yards my fingers were frozen. See, a neighbor's puppy had chewed the thumb of one of my cold-weather riding gloves, which were due for replacement anyway, but I hadn't got around to replacing them because, hey, when it's 65 degrees out you forget what cold fingers feel like. I passed a friend in her truck -- she leaned out the window and asked, "You know it's 36 degrees out?" Well, no, I hadn't noticed that. Long time ago I'd be leaving work at quarter till five on a D.C. summer's day and someone would say, "You're going to bike home? You know it's a hundred and two?" Ignorance may not be bliss, but sometimes knowledge doesn't help. At 36 degrees frostbite wasn't exactly likely, but I did flip the mitten portion of my fleece "smoker's gloves" over my fingers. This greatly diminished the equestrian finesse of my fingers, but frozen fingers aren't all that sensitive either so the tradeoff seemed worth it. We returned on the trail behind the cohousing development: it's woods back there, but it's close enough to inhabited dwellings that hunters were unlikely. Today's project is a run up to the tack shop for a pair of Thinsulate-lined riding gloves. It's probably time to think about long underwear too. Later the same day: Effing tack shop had exactly one pair of winter riding gloves, apart from the gourmet line, that is, and that pair was small. I could barely fit my hand in. Probably should have bought them anyway, because my fingers froze again, this time in my warm-weather gloves. Cold [sic] comfort: the next small-handed person who walks into the store will walk out with warm fingers.
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