Nipping at Your Nose
It was 3 degrees as I headed out to work this morning. 3 measley fucking degrees! Orb, that's -16 to you! :-) Jack Frost wasn't simply nipping at my nose this morning, it felt more like he was spraying any of my exposed skin with a fine mist of hydrochloric acid. At that temperature, it hurts to breathe. God damn! Naturally, since I have an entire 10 minute drive to work, the van started to heat up just as I turned the engine off to go inside. After the epic trek across the vast expanses of the windswept Lowe's parking ice desert, I got to the doors feeling like I should be wearing the Phantom of the Opera's mask, my face felt so burnt.
Don't panic. I pulled through okay.
Don't panic. I pulled through okay.
posted by Grover at 12/20/2004 09:58:00 AM
4 Comments:
LOL, cheers for the conversion, I was about to say it went to -4C here last night. But I forgot you lot still are stuck on the F's. 3F is low....
Though I was watching Cool Runnings today (John Candy film about Jamaican Bobsleighers, great stuff) - and I always remember the temp display on the airport at Calgary in that film. -26C. Lovely.
Luckily I've got plenty of Norse genes in me, and my viking build comes in dead handy for winter. I'm still only wearing a shirt to go out, maybe with a light jacket if it's night. 0C in a shirt is easy enough. On the downside, I die in summer even at 52 degrees north.
here's my attitude toward temperature: Cold is ok. If you're cold, you can bundle up and get warm. On the other hand, if you're hot, and there's no air conditioning, you're fucked. There's nothing you can do but sweat and/or pass out. :-)
My geneaology is primarily Polish, Irish, and Scottish, but I'm pretty much a northern European mutt. For some reason, though, I'm still terribly sensitive to the cold.
That reminds me of a story my dad has about when he first got stationed in Britian in the military back in the 60's. He said this really nice friendly lady at the currency exchange said, "Hutchinson, what a lovely British name!", to which my dad made the (well learned) mistake of replying, "Actually, it's Irish." He says her face just went dead. "Oh." She replied. No further conversation after that. :-) He loved it there, though, don't get me wrong. To this day he still speaks of it fondly, touring the towns and their architecture while the other airmen simply spent their off time at pubs in the company of 'scrumps'. What a great word. I've picked up use of the word 'dodgy'.
You're dead right there. That's what I tell my parents in summer. You can always get warmer, but getting cooler is tricky. There are only so many layers available to take off... and the police close in long before I get to the lower ones...
Britain is quite pleasent in it's own way, depends where you go. Cities are hell holes, but that's the same the world over.
'dodgy' is a great word, do the americans not use it? Londoners use it exceptionally regularly, dodgy folk that we are.
Nobody, at least no one around here, uses dodgy. I still don't think I have the exact usage pinned down. In one context, the dodgy end of town I guess meant the run-down section. Another usage was calling an ugly (almost tacky)looking shirt dodgy. I think I'm at least close. Tell me if I am:
At work, somebody stacked wood shipping pallettes a little too high, and it had started to lean way to the side. I told the forklift driver that it looked dodgy, and I didn't feel comfortable walking by it. Was that a proper usage? It sounded good. :-)
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