Deep freeze

The low tonight here in Ballyhoo is forecast to be 9 above.

If we were still in Des Moines, I would gripe (of course) but it would be surviveable. Heck, we lived through 25 below several times. As an aside, did you know that if you take a glass of water outside when it's 25 below and toss the water into the air, it goes POOF! and becomes a clap of snow? Instantly? Well, it does. I tried it.

Anyway, 9 above isn't that big a deal, right?

Well, in Ballyhoo, it is. Our houses here are just not set up to deal with that kind of cold. For one thing, when we lived in Des Moines, we had a basement in which our plumbing pipes resided. They weren't going to freeze up. Here, though, our pipes are just coming up through a pier-and-beam foundation, out in the air. It just doesn't generally get so cold that there's a danger of them freezing.

Until they do.

We've got all the faucets dripping and all the cabinets open, in the hopes that we'll still be able to flush the toilet and take a shower tomorrow morning. The space heaters are cranked up (yes, Virginia, we have a CO detector in good working order) and the kids are all sleeping downstairs in the rooms that are warm(er).

I can gripe, of course, but I still think of my pals in Des Moines who, at this particular moment, are registering 0.5 degrees. That's a HALF A DEGREE ABOVE ZERO. You want that half a degree. It's a psychological thing.