CV. Staying-in stand up

It’s so dry I run the humidifier all week just to keep my epidermis from peeling off of the rest of my face. Although maybe I should just cut the electrical usage and embrace a cheap face lift.

As in lifting off of my face. Is this thing on?

I’ll be here all week, folks.

I mean that literally. I will be here, indoors, sitting on my butt all week, all month, and maybe even till spring at this rate.

This little cold spell has us all indoors, which is saying something since most Idahoans have more or less adapted to the cold. How many of us avid walkers, hikers, and runners spend half their breath saying, “It’s not that bad” all winter long? But at some point it gets too cold for even the most enthusiastic among us to be outdoors longer than it takes to half-run to the car.

A half-run, by the way, is the little dance-run you do when it’s way too cold to take your sweet time walking, but also way too cold for you to assume there won’t be any ice on the ground. You meet the ground slowly but move quickly between steps to split the difference. This is the terminology you invent out of it’s-too-cold-to-go-outside boredom. (Patent’s pending on that hyphenated nightmare word, too, so keep your grubby little fingers off of it.)

It takes a deep winter freeze to get the cat indoors. Well, truthfully it would take an atom bomb with the ominous jingling of house keys (Grey Kitty’s greatest fear) to get the cat to stay indoors, but a rough cold spell is all it takes to get us motivated to wrestle him away from the door, which counts.

You’d think he’d be grateful to have somewhere warm and ice-free to be at night, but instead he squeaks pitifully all night long. He never got the hang of “meow” so he emits a high-pitched, somewhat anxious squeaky sound out of his hatch instead. If his chirps of desperation carry on the wind, please don’t call PETA. He is warm, loved, and fed.

I’ve tried commiserating with the little gremlin but he seems rudely apathetic about the fact that I’m bored and frustrated, too. Does he even care about how difficult it is to be dry and cold right now? Come on, cat, you try sneezing and coughing in public right now!

I swear, I always sneeze when I move from really cold to really warm environments quickly. The coughing is also from the drier than average climate (see above comment on perpetually peeling epidermis despite best skincare efforts).

So basically, it’s really darn cold right now.

The weather is so bad, in fact, that you probably found this funny. Because you’re too bored to remember what real fun – or real warmth – is like.

I’ll show myself out. Or in, because you know, it’s not a good time to go outdoors.

I know, I know. Just be sure to bundle up when you crumple this page into a ball and toss it in the recycling bin, okay?