My Feet Are Cold!

Here I sit, firmly planted on my sofa, wrapped in a robe and wearing fleece lounging pants and socks. It is cold. Not by the standards of my early youth, when I was living in a more northern climate, but by Florida standards. The little temp gadget on my screen says the temp outside is 54 degrees (that's Fahrenheit) but inside it is 72. And 72 seems cold to me now.

I want you to understand why I do not use Celsius numbers. Simply put, Celsius is not definitive enough. I could get used to calling 54 degrees 12.22 but why do I need to think in decimal points? A half degree makes little difference in Fahrenheit but a big difference in Celsius. Not to mention that 30 doesn't sound very warm to me but 86 does.

But let's get back to cold. I don't like it. It's that simple. I have never really liked it, not even during those early days in New York. When winter came, it meant bundling up until I was practically immobile so I could go outside and get pelted with snowballs. Once back inside (a full 30 minutes later), it was unbundle and lay the now wet or damp clothes on the radiator. In fact, we kept socks on the radiator all during the winter. Putting those on gave us a short period of time when our feet would be warm.

Many of you may not know what a radiator is. In the days before central air and heat, people had furnaces which heated water to almost boiling. This water was piped into radiators which then heated the rooms they were in. At least in theory. It wasn't very efficient. But those radiators really kept socks toasty.

Fortunately, for me, my mother convinced my father to move the family to Florida. It only took me a year to adapt. After that, I got used to "winter" being a few a few days here and there between mid-November and the end of March.

Right now, we are experiencing "winter". Yesterday, I went to play golf in the morning and found the thermometer in the car reporting 40. This is intolerable to me. I almost turned around and went home. But this will pass. In a couple of days the highs will break into the 80's again and I will have thawed out.

I hope.