Cold Enough to Freeze the What off WHAT?

Another frosty morn' on Lake Coeur d' Alene

When I was a young Army platoon leader freezing my ass off on the endless acreage of cow toilet that is Fort Riley, Kansas, I promised myself that I would never again live in a place where winter makes a home.  For more than forty years I have kept that promise, until now.  

What the hell was I thinking?!!  This morning I woke to an eight degree slap in the face from that bitch they call the Polar Vortex and I'm wondering if I can still find my Army mummy bag.  The scene outside my window here on Lake Coeur d' Alene, Idaho is stunning.  Just glimpsing the frigid water where the remaining "learning challenged" Canadian geese appear frozen in place causes my testicles to ascend.  Damn!  Will I ever be able to retrieve the paper from the front deck or, for that matter, will a trip to the mailbox at the curb do me in?  

When you're safe and warm it's hard to recall what it's like to be really cold.  "We can do winter", my wife and I both exclaimed when we began to plan our exit from California, a state so far gone to ruin it may never come back, but now we have to prove it.  Granted it is far easier to ignore the worst season of them all when you limit your exposure to extremely small doses such as mail retrieval and walking to the car.   It's far removed from sleeping on the ground in Kansas for weeks at a time while pretending to fight a war with the Godless Russian commies in Eastern Europe.  (Obviously I was born too soon as that is apparently no concern for the current administration.)

Another seasonal adjustment we're having to make here in the panhandle of Idaho is caused by the reluctance of the sun to make more than a daily cameo appearance.  It pops up, when there is no rain, around 7 AM and says "see ya" sometime around 4PM.   We both sleep like hibernating bears and eat like we were going to "the chair".  I'm fairly certain neither of us could make the team in Alaska. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not complaining.  Linda and I both grew up in the Midwest where "nice days" are counted on one hand and the snow blows sideways.  Also, not wearing combat boots, packing and M-16, and eating C-rations has me thinking that maybe my aversion to winter was just a bit irrational.  I'll give you a full after action report in the Spring.  In the meantime Christmas is coming and so is grandson Dan.  There is lots of food in the pantry and plenty of fireplace fires yet to enjoy.  Any way you stack it, it is leagues more enjoyable than scrounging for water and sending tax dollars to dumber than drywall politicians in Sacramento.

As North Idahoans say about their weather, "The wind up your ass is so cold you'll be farting snowflakes in July."

That's okay by me.  

Jerry Brown is nowhere in sight.

Pass the honey and the huckleberries, please.