A cautionary tale?

Dear Blog Reader:

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Last Sunday, I found myself sitting in front of the mother hen trying to bring my core temp back up to an acceptable level. The mother hen is a space heater that Bev and I move from room to room in order to keep comfortable during the cold winter months. Things have moderated in the past week, but mother hen continues to provide deep and immediate comfort.

We like to sleep in a cold room. We are gone most days at work. Consequently, we find it difficult to heat the house instantly to the balmy 72 degrees demanded by our ancestors, and by upbringing ourselves, when they heated the house with the brute force of a 60% efficient gas furnace. A house that was poorly insulated; where half of the storm windows fit so poorly, they rattled in the wind, and at some points, snow could be seen drifting in. This was done with furnaces so powerful that stepping on the register could cause pain or even leave waffle brands on the bottoms of feet. Sitting on the register required asbestos shorts or at least a pot holder. Such were those heady days of inexpensive natural gas.

Not so today, the 99% efficient furnace/air pump, throws heat into the room barely the 98.2. The same temp of we the people. Longing for the olden days, Bev and I bought a space heater. We are ever mindful of the danger that its comfort giving warm could turn on us in a moment of inattention and set our quilt on fire as we try to create that magical bubble of 80 degrees in our immediate vicinity. We love the mother hen and the warmth and protection she creates.

I mentioned that I was sitting in front of the mother hen trying to warm up. I had just gone on an invigorating 23 degree bike ride with 16 mile per hour winds blowing in my face half of the time. Argh! I was so cold. In the delirium brought about by the burning sensation of frost bit toes warming up ever so slowly, I panic trying to remember if you warm up frostbit extremities with warm or cold water. I panic further hoping that the wrong choice won’t leave me with some sort of permanent damage.

Some place along this mental journey, I some how remembered that it wasn’t this bad last year. I went on numerous, enjoyable, even balmy bike rides in January and February.  In fact on Super Bowl weekend Bev and I rode bicycles around downtown Indy with light jackets on. Oh it was glorious; watching the world bask in the glow of Indianapolis’ wonderful party. Do you remember the build up to the Super Bowl? The city fathers and mothers assured us that if it snowed we would just remove the snow. Every thing would be okay. We are Midwesterners. We can handle a little snow. We won’t panic like Jerry Jones and those Dallas Texans.

As it turned out, our human sacrifices paid off. The weather gods smiled upon us. We were able to zip down the line, drink plenty of over priced beer, and mob up to the stage for the free LMFAO with nary a glance at the “warming” station. We are Indianapolis in the middle of winter. We don’t need no stinking warming stations.

Those were heady times. We are Indianapolis and things turned out okay. Better than okay, we were great.

That was then. Now a year later, the mommas and the papas of Indianapolis are making noises. We can do that again. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. We have the plan in place. We can snaz up the zip line. We could zip line over pits of alligators; our toes mere inches from their fearsome snapping, bone crushing jaws. How hard can it be? We have proven that we can keep the lights on through the half time show.

Well this is your old uncle Rog, with a bit of advice. We live in Indiana. It is February. Last year was a mirage, an anomaly, a freak of nature. Yes, it was probably brought on by inappropriate removal of flannel sheets from beds during a brief warm spell in January. The lack of apples this past year has chastened us. We will leave our flannel sheets on through the first week of May. Won’t we!?

If we have the Super Bowl again, the weather will not be kind. The cold Ying will slap last year’s Yang right in the face. And city fathers and mothers before you go writing checks you can’t cash about our fantastic snow removal abilities, we are not good at snow removal. Case in point;  the major interstate going past the “international” airport was closed down for hours because of a snow “shower” on the Thursday before the Super Bowl. Talk about great publicity. We would have had more public scrutiny, than Beyonce’s whoha in that outfit she was wearing, with elephants walking down the interstate. Another case in point; Homeland Security opened the emergency center for a six inch blizzard the day after Christmas. We won't stand up against the wrath of nature.

No! We are Hoosiers. We know our place in the cosmos. Sure we are hospitable. We will lick the world’s face like a big ole Labrador in search of acceptance. Deep down, we know that we live in a place where the winter winds will turn against us. Our leaders want us to believe that Mother Nature can be controled, contained, and coraled. We know better. We know its not nice to fool mom nat.

Take care.

Roger