Brrr!

I started this yesterday, but never finished. So I'll revise to make it sound like I wrote it today. It was COLD yesterday. When I took Bubba to daycare, the car said the outside temp was 26 degrees. He had a hat and mittens on. I had gloves on. There was frost everywhere (except for some reason, my car, which is parked in an open air - but covered parking space was frost-free). The sky was completely clear. Lovely to look at. Horrible to walk in. It was noticeably warmer in Portland, where there was dense fog.

Today, there was fog in Beaverton and clouds in Portland. I think the car said it was 6 or 7 degrees warmer. There was still frost on the ground, but it wasn't too bad, really. I especially don't mind the cold weather because the dirt trail shortcut that I like to take to and home from the train is now frozen enough to walk on. It's generally only a summer trail, as the rains of fall, winter and spring generally deter me from walking on a dirt (mud) path with work pants on.

But I digress. As I was walking yesterday, I was convinced that Oregon had usurped Nebraska's cold temperatures. I've been trolling msn.com for weather updates from the midwest. Imagine my surprise to see that our high temperatures have been very similar so far this year. Granted, the lows in NE are much lower than the lows in OR, but the high temps have been pretty nice back east. So after my 25 degree walk into work, I logged on to check out Omaha's weather. I was delighted to see that their "current temp" (which would have been 2 hours after my walk into work time) was 16 degrees. Their low was 3, their high was 24. Whew. This move really was a good idea, and I'm happy to report that today's current temp is 20 degrees warmer.

Even so, we're cold at our house. We've finally gotten the space heater out (before bed only), and we have turned the heat on in the kids' room (overnight only), but it's still probably in the low 60s in our house at any given time. The kids are learning the power of blankets and sweaters, I hope.

We went to the zoo on Sunday for a playdate with Bubba and a friend from preschool. We've been asking Bubba about this friend, since his parents contacted us about a playdate. Bubba seemed disinterested in this particular boy, but he did say that he liked the boy's mom. She comes everyday after lunch to pick up her son. They seemed like a really nice family. Hopefully we left an OK impression with them. The zoo was cold, so there were very few people there. We spent a good deal of time looking at the lions and the polar bears. There is a "conservation" exhibit near the polar bears that shows carbon footprints from the average American, the average person in an industrialized nation, the average person worlwide and the goal average world wide. It was striking. And disappointing. The average American is nearly twice the average for an industrialized nation. Yipes. It also had 10 ways to conserve. Turning down the heat is one of them (as is taking mass transit), so Scooter really thinks we're doing our part. She's probably right. But that means that there are some people with even bigger carbon footprints than our family. It's scary.

Anyway, Bubba had a very good time w/ his friend, and now he wants to hang out with that boy again. I think that would be fun. Maybe we'll choose an indoor venue next time.