Despite living far above the Mason-Dixon line for almost a decade I have not adapted to winter weather. So after an unusually frigid month of December, I was fearing what torture January would bring. Last week gave the answer: a cold snap swept across the Midwest, lowering temperatures far below zero. At worst the wind chill was a staggering -33 degrees (Fahrenheit) with an actual temperature of -14 degrees. How cold is this? So cold that soda cans we stored in our garage actually froze solid and burst open, something that more often happens when you leave them in a freezer.  I went to sleep expecting an inch of snow and woke up to at least four or five inches, which I shoveled out of the driveway myself before going to work. And my car barely starts–it does not appreciate the cold air,  nor the icicles on its rear end.

When we returned home on Thursday, a steady stream of water was flowing from our next-door-neighbor’s front yard. The source was a water main that froze and burst. This left the street in front of our house a solid sheet of ice. The main was repaired that night, and our neighbor’s yard was destroyed in the process. Considering that our neighbor took pride in his lawn and maintained it with great care, I imagine this must be very painful. I feel pretty bad, and in a strange way, wish it happened in our yard instead of his. We don’t care much for landscaping and would have just shrugged it off, repeating our usual mantra of “Eh, whatever. It’s a rental.”