Frost Day
Today it is thirty-three below zero (C) and windy, and school is cancelled. This is called a "frost day". I had to go to school to confirm that it was cancelled, since the phone was alternately busy and not answered, but I'm happy nonetheless. "How he rejoices," said Aiman, of me, when I found out. Today it really is cold. I'm well used to my nose freezing inside, but my eyelashes freezing together was a new thing.
A propos, I would like to list some of the keys to staying warm I've learned here:
- Thaw your eyelashes periodically. A curling iron might be appropriate for this. After that,
- The most important thing you can do to stay warm is not live in a village. I have city central heat, which though ineffecient, uncontrollable, and a little unpredictable, means that my apartment is constantly at least not cold. In the village, where your house is heated by coal, the house is generally heated twice a day, in bursts, and for carbon monoxide and tending reasons, is unheated at night. Waking up in a village house absolutely requires
- Pajamas. Getting up in the morning in the cold is so much easier if you have pajamas.
- Scarves. I never wore a scarf in America, and I shiver to think how many joules I've wasted over the years, bled out the neck, joules that could have gone to learning the mandolin or improving my handwriting or something.
- Shoe inserts. This is a recent revelation. I purchased a new pair of big furry local boots for this winter, since my old ones were leaking badly and the fur was patchy. The new boots looked identical to my old ones, except my feet were always cold in them. I blamed all sorts of things: bad socks, poor recollection of how cold my feet actually were last year, my being a wuss. However, the culprit was poor inserts. At the bazaar last week, I bought new, thick, wooly-looking inserts, and my feet haven't been so warm since summer. Don't underestimate the power of inserts. And generally speaking, don't underestimate
- Local clothing. The Kazakhs know how to stay warm. Buy local clothes - they're cheaper, you'll be stared at less, and you'll be much warmer. And finally, I recommend:
- Oatmeal and Earl Grey tea, taken leisurely early in the morning. I don't know how much warmer this makes the body, but for the soul, it is indispensable. To augment the effect, listen to Mozart piano sonatas or Sufjan Stevens. If the Sufjan Stevens album happens to be about Illinois, you will be futher warmed by soft nostalgia. And if you're having breakfast with someone you like, then...well, that whole thing can be a good keeping-warm technique, too.
A propos, I would like to list some of the keys to staying warm I've learned here:
- Thaw your eyelashes periodically. A curling iron might be appropriate for this. After that,
- The most important thing you can do to stay warm is not live in a village. I have city central heat, which though ineffecient, uncontrollable, and a little unpredictable, means that my apartment is constantly at least not cold. In the village, where your house is heated by coal, the house is generally heated twice a day, in bursts, and for carbon monoxide and tending reasons, is unheated at night. Waking up in a village house absolutely requires
- Pajamas. Getting up in the morning in the cold is so much easier if you have pajamas.
- Scarves. I never wore a scarf in America, and I shiver to think how many joules I've wasted over the years, bled out the neck, joules that could have gone to learning the mandolin or improving my handwriting or something.
- Shoe inserts. This is a recent revelation. I purchased a new pair of big furry local boots for this winter, since my old ones were leaking badly and the fur was patchy. The new boots looked identical to my old ones, except my feet were always cold in them. I blamed all sorts of things: bad socks, poor recollection of how cold my feet actually were last year, my being a wuss. However, the culprit was poor inserts. At the bazaar last week, I bought new, thick, wooly-looking inserts, and my feet haven't been so warm since summer. Don't underestimate the power of inserts. And generally speaking, don't underestimate
- Local clothing. The Kazakhs know how to stay warm. Buy local clothes - they're cheaper, you'll be stared at less, and you'll be much warmer. And finally, I recommend:
- Oatmeal and Earl Grey tea, taken leisurely early in the morning. I don't know how much warmer this makes the body, but for the soul, it is indispensable. To augment the effect, listen to Mozart piano sonatas or Sufjan Stevens. If the Sufjan Stevens album happens to be about Illinois, you will be futher warmed by soft nostalgia. And if you're having breakfast with someone you like, then...well, that whole thing can be a good keeping-warm technique, too.
5 Comments:
You know, at times over the last few years I've missed the cold, living in Mississippi. Even now, while I'm living in the Bizarro hemisphere where it happens to be summer, there's a part of my mind that looks back on snow and ice with some fondness. Then I remember I'm an idiot, and walk outside into the sunshine and think about wandering the half-mile down the road to the city beach.
But good luck to you, with staying warm and all that.
You conceited southerner! I couldn't find the beach if I wanted to go to it. The lake and the shore are a uniform frosty white.
I got frostbite on the tip of my nose! (I look like a clown.) In Russian: я отморозил нос. Literally: I frosted out the nose.
My nose got sunburned this weekend, so I look like a clown as well. You ought to come down to New Zealand, I'll show you what a beach looks like (although today the sun was chased away by a thunderstorm. I thought the sun had more fortitude than that).
Wouldn't I love to. The sun is looking pretty weak around here, too, only pulling itself about thirty degrees above the horizon by noon. It's like the sun gets out of bed, stretches, and goes back to sleep. (Of course, with no classes to go to, I've been doing a little of that myself.)
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