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I am so into this winter thing.

According to my wife from northern England, we saw some REAL SNOW the other day. I thought I was looking at snow when some little wispy things blew out of the sky. Supposedly those are snow flurries, not snow. Thicker globs of white stuff poured out of the sky about a half hour later. She gave that her "snow" nod of approval when visibility dropped to 50 feet.

I was ready for it. The previous night I had gone to the hardware store just to buy a snow shovel. I called a friend in Montana from the snow shovel isle itself and had bought some huge bent green thing based on his qualified advice. Unfortunately, all the snow melted an hour later. I am now the proud owner of an extra long, orthapedic snow shovel and nothing to clear. I laugh now, but it won’t last.

We’ve had a surprise temperature drop here today which is also a new experience. Sure I’ve been in cold temperatures in California, but that was when I thought 32 was low. As I write this my thermometer says 18° F (gs- it hit 20° F before midnight). Here are some things I have just discovered as the mercury headed south.

• Long underwear is your friend
• Gloves were invented for a reason
• Take your gloves off before peeing in the woods - important!
• Grass is crunchy and glitters in the moonlight
• At 20° F Fluorescent bulbs are worthless
• At 20° F packing tape craps out - so much for packing away summer stuff.
• Unless you were raised to roll in snow wearing only underwear, a t-shirt under any jacket is nothing.
• When it’s 25° F outside, a 62° F house feels like a sauna
• At 28° F the dog won’t stay outside for long without serious retaliation in the chewed sneaker department
• At 22° F the dog runs out, squats, and runs back in before you can even close the door
• At 15° F the dog won’t go out