It's been startlingly cold around here lately, as you probably know if you've been outside. Going outside was unavoidable for me yesterday, as I had to go to work. So I know first-hand just how cold it was.

I was planning on taking the bus to work, but since as usual I was running late I was going to have to ride my bike to the bus-stop, but since it was so cold the bike-lock was all stiff, and when I tried to force the key anyway it up and busted on me (the key did) and so I had to go back inside and get some pliers to turn the busted key-end in the lock to get it (the lock) to open, and by then it was too late to catch the bus anyway, so hell with it, I decided just to bike to work. Turns out, when you got a wind chill of minus 20 or so, riding a bike to work is a singularly unpleasant experience. Even my eyebrows began to hurt. I had never even suspected before that eyebrows were equipped with nerves, seeing as how they are only made out of hair mostly, so I guess I can say I learned something new. Halfway I stopped at the Marathon station to defrost a little, and the Indian man behind the counter just sort of glowered at me contemptuously the whole time, not even trying to disguise his irritation. Apparently maybe in India it's some sort of faux-pas to be cold? This is another new thing I have learned.

Naturally, I was quite late to work- even more so than usual, I mean- and so Allison was like "S'matter? Your watch stop?" So I was "Well no, see it was so cold that I had to stop at the Marathon station to warm up but it turns out that it's really bad manners in India to do so I guess. Also I don't got a watch." Allison accepted this excuse at face value, because obviously anyone who doesn't have sense enough not to ride a bike to work on the coldest day of the year can't really be expected to know the finer points of Indian etiquette. Even after I got all my work done, I still hung out at the office for a while because hanging at the office was preferable to going back out into the cold again. That is just how cold it was outside.

So that's why I'm sitting here writing this today, as it's far too cold to leave the house and find something more entertaining to do. Not that it isn't freezing in here, for that matter. I'm reluctant to turn up the heat though, because in what turned out to be a remarkable instance of poor planning, when I moved in I set up the kitty-litter box next to the intake vent for the furnace. In retrospect, that was a pretty poor decision. Because when the heat comes on the air comes out faintly tinged with the aroma of cat-turd, especially at those times when the cat's just gone and done her thing. When it's all said and done sometimes you're better off just staying cold. I'd move the box, but now the cat has gotten used to it being there, and you know how cats are, and it'd be a shame to move the box only to have the cat continue to poop in the same place anyway. For one thing, it'd probably ruin the floor there, and then I'd never get my deposit back

For another, I'd have cat poop on my floor.