brr-r-r-r

Got very cold here last night, inside as well as out.  It was below freezing, and there's a two-foot-wide hole in the ceiling over the master bathroom.  At 0500 there was a palpable wind going through the house.  Basically from the heater straight to the great outdoors.  They say they're going to fix that today.

My office is not to the point where a glass of water will freeze by my desk, which did happen in the winter of '93.  But I am wearing layers, including an obnoxious bile-green St. Augustine sweatshirt.  (I remember buying it in a cold snap up there – there was nothing else in the store in my size!)

The pretty red flowers of my Turk's Cap in the atrium half survived – the ones closest to the house made it through the night; the ones farthest away did not.  It got down in the twenties for a few hours.

Warming up today, though.  It's 30 degrees now, but getting up to 59.  Daily highs steadily rising, to 68, 75, and 80 by Sunday.  Hey; let's go to the beach.  Bring suntan oil and furs.

(The poor guys who are replacing our frozen pipes in the front yard have a real job.  They're natives, and not prepared for the bitter cold.  Well, I wasn't prepared to shell out five grand for the luxury of flush toilets and running water.  He grumps.)

Of course it's more serious in the rest of the country.  Single digits in Boston; we got out just in time.  I'm tempted to go to the beach on Sunday, just to take an annoying picture to send back to the guys at MIT.  "How's the surf up there?"  No, that would be cruel.

Joe