On Brass Monkeys and Witch’s Teats
Look, there’s no denying it – -14C in Toronto is terribly cold. It’s a damp cold that gets into your joints and makes them ache something fierce, and no matter how many layers you have on, you never seem to be able to get warm. And then there’s the wind – good lord, the wind! All those tall buildings make such a lovely canyon for the wind to go whipping down, picking up snow and ice and freezing you no matter how hard you try to stay warm.
But, then there’s this:
That’s nippy, let me tell you. I was at a friend’s place this evening, and this is what the temperature was when I got home. It takes less than 2 minutes to get from where I park my car to my house, and in that time my nose hair froze, my jeans got stiff and my cheeks went numb. Breathing hurts in that kind of cold. And yes, it’s a dry cold, which my poor chapped hands will attest to [1], which doesn’t change the fact that in that kind of cold, you sometimes don’t realize how terribly cold it is because there’s no wind or damp to seep into your bones. And by the time you do, you’ve frozen off something vital.
[1] I wear mittens any time I got outside, but the air is so dry it doesn’t take much for them to get rough and bleeding. The best defense I’ve got against this is Bag Balm. I kid you not – it’s really the only thing that works on me.