the weather today

In a word: cold. The actual temp was 16F when we got up this morning, with a windchill of zero. My plan was to stay in my jammies, crawl back into bed with the laptop and cuppa joe, and work from home. I got through the first three steps, only to discover that something was wrong with our cable internet connection and I couldn't connect to anything. So I hauled myself up and out into the cold in down coat, long johns, gloves and boots. When I got here I discovered I had a dollar off coupon from the campus coffee shop, so to compensate for not being home in my jammies, I decided to buy myself a treat. Got back into coat and gloves and boots and hauled myself up the hill behind my building to the Student Union.

Coming back out, standing at the top of the hill with a steaming latte in my hand, thinking things weren't going to be so bad afterall, I stopped for a minute to breathe in the view: ice cold and clear, a stiff wind in my face, the hill falling away below me to a tangle of brick paths and ancient sycamores, the hemlock lined creek at the bottom with its worn-smooth wooden bridges, Dunn Meadow on the other side of the creek covered in a light frosting of snow and very few footprints yet on this cold cold morning. There is a beauty to winter that will certainly elude me by February, but still comes as a sharp intake of breath and a sense of wonder and surprise in December. (photo: December hike at Griffy)