Baby, It's Cold Outside

My best friend, Los Angeles born and bred, begged me not to do the "Canadian Snow Dance" last night, but I think she'll forgive me (eventually) for the Frost Shimmy.

Yep, that's right, people, last night the temperature dipped low enough to provide a reasonably substantial dusting of frost on rooftops and cars left outside. I am weirdly pleased by this situation, thus perhaps proving her theory that I have ice water for blood due to my partial heritage.
I realized that I have actually never lived in a climate, until now, that didn't have pretty awful winters, and so I guess you learn to take your pleasures where you can. Toronto is by no means the coldest Canadian city, but neither is it the balmiest, and you learn to bundle up and have fun outdoors, or go quietly insane due to slow dehydration caused by ancient and ill-working radiators. When we lived in Texas and North Carolina, we lived in western Texas and North Carolina, which if you know anything about geography and climate = frigging damn cold and icy in the winter. Moving out to California was a treat, and still is in many ways, but every so often, it's nice to be reminded that it *is* a different season elsewhere in the world.

I bundled up my lemon tree on the deck with a fleece blanket and an old sheet, causing it to resemble Michael Jackson at his most paranoid - but hey, maybe I'll still get some lemons from it. Saw a young boy, walking to school, stop at a frost-bedecked car and gleefully write something on the window - it made me smile. Coping with alternative weather - you're doing it right!

And say what you will, dismiss our version of 'cold' (and I know you will) but a temperature at or close to freezing plus frost at least approximates a "white Christmas". So there.

Having been semi-assimilated, I no longer have an ice scraper in my car. It's generally not needed here in CA. So this morning I had to use the brim of my baseball hat to render the windshield transparent before driving to the boathouse. The defroster would have handled it in about 5 minutes, but I was in a rush.

I, too, enjoy some real winter temperatures. I'll be ready for 50's and 60s in two weeks, though.