Winter has more than outstayed its welcome. It has been bitterly cold for weeks and just about every day there’s been measurable (but light) snow. People around here are getting twitchy, and cabin fever is raging. We’re in the midst of another very dangerous cold spell. We’ve had so many weather advisories and warnings in the last couple of weeks that I don’t even pay attention to them anymore. “Balmy” is now anything above zero.
A few weeks ago the Weather Channel posted a slideshow on its website of “America’s Coldest Major Cities” using 30-year average temperatures in December, January and February. Madison is not really a major city (the latest census pegs us at about 240,000 people), but I curiously flipped through the photos anyway and sure enough there we were at #3. We couldn’t quite beat out Anchorage, Alaska at #2, so we have that going for us.
I’ve been pretty housebound throughout January, but when I do venture out in public, friends and acquaintances breathlessly ask me if I’ve started my flowers yet, as if that will somehow loosen winter’s grip on us all.
If I thought sowing seeds would in any way free us from this wintery prison, I would’ve started the day after Christmas.