Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Jan. 24, 2003: Why Can't I Hibernate?

Weather like this makes me wish I could hibernate. Like a bear, I could cuddle up in a nice, warm cave somewhere and sleep the winter away.

Right now this part of Pennsylvania is seeing record-breaking cold. Or to put it another way, electronics-breaking cold. It was so cold while I was trying to dictate this into my mini-tape recorder that my recorder refused to work properly.

My dog seems fine with this. I usually try to take her for a few good walks a day, but with the weather the way it is, I've resorted to just leaving her out the back door.

She hops into the back yard, playfully, sniffs things to see if they smell differently than the last time she sniffed them, a few hours ago. I have to remind her what she's there to do: "Go pee-pee!"

When she's in the mood, she'll comply right away. But otherwise, she continues hopping around, sniffing things. This forces me to repeat the command. "Go pee-pee! Go pee-pee!" I shout, my voice turning desperate. All of this must be extremely amusing to the neighbors.

Why do I stand outside in the cold with my dog? Because she refuses to stay out there alone. As soon as I close the door, she's at it, whining to be let back in. I think she was permanently traumatized by living next to a dog who was forced to stay outside in all weather. She's afraid I'll abandon her to a similar fate.

Even after she's done, she bounces around sniffing things, immune to the cold while I'm standing on the back steps with icicles in my hair. This makes me wish I had fur.

My brother doesn't share my views on the cold. He revels in it. Since he left Central Pennsylvania, he's lived in two places that were so cold I couldn't imagine moving there. The first was Colorado. I visited him and his then-fiance there for New Year's 2000. Not only was it so cold that I had permanent wind-burn during the trip, but he and his friends had decided the best way to spend New Year's was outside.

Now granted, there was a bonfire, but this didn't help very much. It only kept one side of you warm at a time.

Some of the guys decided the best way to deal with this problem was to actually get in the fire. You think I'm joking, but I have pictures.

And this was before midnight.

My brother and his fiance, now his wife, are now living in Vermont. I visited there this summer, and it was certainly a beautiful place. Of course, it wasn't 20 degrees below zero at the time.

Every time I talk to him on the phone, he asks me how cold it is in Philly. I usually complain that it was so cold I got an ice-cream headache from walking outside, or something to that effect.

"That's nothing," he tells me. He then shocks me with the current temperature in Vermont, a tinge of pride in his voice.

He does the same thing with snow. If we had four inches, they had 12. If we had a foot of snow, they had two feet.

And in the very next breath, he says, "You should move here."

I tell him I'll think about it.

Moral:
I'll move to Vermont if I can figure out a way to hibernate.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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