A week of it. Days are sunny but it never gets close to freezing. Nights drop down around minus 15-20 Celsius: single or negative single digits Fahrenheit.
The sky is pale blue, clear but a little hazy -- we can't see Ararat. The house is cool even with the heat on full blast. Claudia curls up on the couch, blanket wrapped around her, whimpering: she can't get warm. I don't mind the cool so much but damn do I hate it when the car doesn't work. We got it started and out the driveway yesterday, but it was an hour of work: spinning wheels, chipping ice, finally bringing dirt to splash all over the slipperiest bits. The car lacks winter tires; it's okay on the main roads, which are mostly clean, but on the ice-covered side streets it handles like a... well, it doesn't really "handle". You sort of aim it and pray.
The boys complain that it's too cold, too cold to go outside, but in fact once you get them out and running around they like it pretty well. On Saturday we walked a couple of kilometers, down the street to the little general store and back. David got unhappy towards the end because he kept getting snow inside his boots, but otherwise they did very well... Jacob, in particular, managed to walk almost the whole way. Which I think is pretty good for two-and-a-quarter, walking on snow and ice.
No snowballs or snowmen, though. The snow is too powdery. Maybe if it warms a bit.
Anyway. I mind all this less than I would in, say, Chicago, because I know it'll be over in a few weeks. Winters here are cold but not long. It'll be getting damp and mild by early March, and by April the garden will be exploding in bloom.
Of course, we won't be here to see that. C'est la vie du consultant.
It is snowing. Hard. Which isn't so bad. In fact, if we were in Philadelphia it'd be great. But we're not. We're in Boston. Which means that the grey granular rocky crap that this is going to turn into will stick around long enough to make running anywhere interesting impossible until the next snowstorm hits.
California looks really good this time of year. So does the Valley of Mexico. Hell, from the way you describe it, Armenia looks great.
I don't expect weather sympathies from Wisconsonians, of course. Although one of you now lives in Brooklyn, damn you, because you don't realize just how much difference an average temp difference of 5 degrees can make until you hafta live it.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | January 14, 2008 at 08:21 PM
What do you know, there was discussion of weather on this blog also a year ago.
The comments that I seem to have written back on January 7th 2007 hold true also today. Temperature is slightly over zero. Very little snow, and that melts quickly. Sleet and rain. Pitch dark. Basically, the kind of weather which explains the high rates of suicide and domestic violence.
The difference to the last year is that these days, I can't run, due to the wounded knee.
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | January 14, 2008 at 08:41 PM
What happened to your knee, if you don't mind me asking?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | January 14, 2008 at 08:45 PM
"On the whole, I'd rather be in Armenia."
-W. C. Fields
Posted by: Paul | January 14, 2008 at 10:39 PM
It was minus 27 C last night. That's -16.6 F. That's not just cold. That's abominable. No person should have to live with such temperatures, especially not me. I can deal with it as long as the house is warm but it isn't. It's about 16 C in here -- 60 F. Old, drafty windows (warped wooden frames), no insulation, inefficient heating...
I remember, in Istanbul, we used to have the same problem. However, we had a fireplace, and my Mom sewed curtains out of this really heavy fabric, covering the entire window front as to eliminate the draft. It worked well, and the living room was always nice and cozy, and we would spend the entire day there. Not here... the living room is actually the coldest room in the house.
Oh, well. Four more weeks.
Posted by: claudia | January 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM
It's an old story. Ten years ago, I busted my knee in a small arbeitsunfall. The damages were fixed in an arthroscopy, but the old injury still manifests itself every now and then.
It's not like I'm any kind of an invalid, but I just have to be a little bit more careful than most people when, for example, preparing for my daily run. If it hurts even a little, I won't run, period.
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | January 15, 2008 at 03:23 PM
It's these kind of temperatures which make me marvel that people ever settled in these areas at all in the ancient past. With all our modern heating devices (well in Armenia semi-modern) we present day people still find it almost impossible to live with, how in the world did the hut people of yore do it without more than the ability to make fire? Also makes me concerned for the homeless of Yerevan, how could they possibly survive a night like that either?
Posted by: Paul | January 15, 2008 at 05:56 PM
Apart from a snow storm just before Christmas, the weather in Toronto has been quite clement, in the single digits Celsius. (That snow melted quickly, as has all the snow since.)
Posted by: Randy McDonald | January 16, 2008 at 09:55 AM