In Which A California Native Acclimates to Winter:
Saturday I found myself going outside to do some quick errand, such as grabbing the ash bucket or a sack of clothespins off the front porch, without bundling up in jacket or gloves or hat, and getting back inside not long after the cold began to penetrate. Later, I went out to the bunkhouse (above the barn) to hunt for a few more notebooks of my grandmother's GE work correspondence.
"Hey Grandpa! I went out there without putting on my hat and gloves and all that. My blood must be thickening; I'm getting used to this weather. I wouldn't have done that a week ago!" Heh. It's also very warm inside on account of firing up the Franklin Stove to burn the trash, so I know I return to a verrrrrry toasty room.
Friday, I discovered the true meaning of a phrase that I've often heard before: WIND CHILL. The sun was out; the snow was bright. Oh! So beautiful! I want to take pictures! The thermometer read 6 degrees. "Okay, that's cold but it's something I can stand," I thought, and I went out without the scarf for the ears and throat (a lesson I learned while getting those lovely pix for my Risking Hypothermia was Rewarding adventures). With only hat, gloves and coat, I went.
The lake's surface is choppy due to all that wind
The wind was blowing. By the time I got down the trail to the lake shore, where the wind blew straight in to Smith Bay, the icy winds whipped at my coat, and took numbing hold of my exposed neck. My nose and ears stung. Inside their gloves, my fingers discovered the territory that lies somewhere between cold and pain and throb and numb. Grandpa had said, "Don't freeze your fingers off!" as I went out the door, which I airily dismissed with a "Thanks; I've no intentions of doing so!" But outside, the wind bit me, I repented of my breezy (!) reply while I breathed warmth into my gloves. Taking pictures, I'd look at my index finger and will it to press the shutter. Then I'd watch the LCD screen to judge the result, since my finger no longer communicates with me about its success or failure at my command to press the shutter button. About all it can tell me is, "Numb!"
Californians, say it again: "Wind Chill." People here in the north east have a gut-level understanding of it, the same way that we know how much respect to grant a four, five, six, or seven on the Richter scale. Wind chill can drop the temperature another dozen degrees. It wasn't 6 above zero outside, with a 10-knot breeze, it was at least a good 6 below zero!
Wind-blown snow creates small snow-dune formations on the ground

Since being at Lake George, I find myself understanding Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion in ways I never knew. This last two weeks, the show has made more sense. Keillor will talk of winter and freezing, and of red, exhilarated faces, and of cold and snow and of haunting thoughts of death and survival. Oh, I'm sure I've heard those kinds of monologues other years, during other winters. But the last two Saturdays, his sonorous words hurled themselves out of the radio, marched up to me and shouted, "YES!!!!" Would it be putting it too mildly for me to say, I Get It Now! ? You betcha!
My friend Julie, who is a cartoonist, has had an online comic strip called Geeks. She just put up a new one! Go see it! (Mom, Dad, if you're reading this, click these words!)
Hanging out with my 99-year-old grandpa, I've been watching him use his computer. He uses it for working with finances/taxes, writing essays, conducting email correspondence with his family, and surfing the web--primarily to check the Weather.com site.
It's been a learning experience for me to watch him operate, and to see his response when Weather.com changed their site layout. ("Where is that link to the map? It used to be right here. They changed this whole thing; I used to click right here to get to the map!") When installing a Y2K-compliant version of Quicken the other day, he was saying "The computer and I don't speak a common language. I can usually guess at what they're getting at [in the dialog boxes], but they never ask me something directly that I can answer for sure."
Then again, it's been a learning experience for him to see me sit here at this desk tap-tap-tapping and clicking away, and tying up the fone line so that we don't hear from telemarketers (!) while publishing this site from my little Powerbook and digital camera.
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