Tuesday: cold weather and gummy bears

I know it’s super boring to talk about the weather.

I’m sorry.

Today is the first Tuesday of 2014.  That is not particularly notable, really.  It is what it is.

And I know it’s been deathly cold in Mahomet where my parents have settled.  I checked yesterday and it was straight-up minus 9.  That is before windchill.

Today in New Haven, the temperature is 10*F and I thought, as I was dressing myself in jeans and a pullover hoodie (because the zip-ups let air in through the zipper, man), I can do this.  No big deal.  10*F is no big deal.

I walked outside and the wind basically took my ears off right away.  It’s a good thing I didn’t touch them on the way to work, because they might have broken off.  Just kidding, but that’s sort of what it felt like.  The internet says that it feels like -6*F with windchill, and I can live with that.  It doesn’t make me feel lily-livered to not enjoy the windchill.

But the point isn’t really the temperature outside.  In fact, besides the wind and cold, it was a very sunny and dry walk in, for which my bruised body was thankful.

The point, my intrepid reader, is that it is cold INSIDE.  Yes, my apartment has achieved the dubious distinction of being colder than my workplace, and in past seasons I have often come to work and wished I’d brought an extra sweatshirt.  Two sweatshirts should do it.

I limped home last night after shopping and made some dinner, and then I sat to eat it, and then I migrated into the bedroom where I wrapped myself in blankets.  Getting out of bed this morning was something I put off for 20 minutes not really because I wanted 20 more minutes of sleep, but more because I’d like to prolong the mostly-warm feeling of being tucked securely into bed underneath four layers of blankets.

I am wondering if I ought to call housing and tell them that the heat is really not satisfactory.  I’ve held my hand over the heater and I can feel a little heat, but it’s quite ineffectual and the huge windows probably suck most of it right back out, even though they’re closed.  Also, my internet has been pretty bad.  And sometimes my hot water doesn’t get very hot.

I’m still fond of the apartment, because it has my things in it and because I really resist change, so I’m settled.  But I really ought to call.  At least the hot water has been behaving itself lately.

We had “swamp time” in my sink today, where we filled up my dish bin with hot soapy water, dumped in a bunch of dry ice and let the bubbles rise up and fill the sink.  Carbon dioxide pours over the edge of the counter in a white delicate fog and looks pretty cool.  Usually we have swamp time because a day is remarkably bad, but today it was just a remarkably unremarkable day, so that was that.

And then we combusted some gummy bears by melting potassium chlorate in a test tube and dropping the gummy bear in.  The flame makes a loud sound, almost a toneless whistle, as it shoots out of the test tube in all of its bright purpley-orange glory and then slowly dies away, leaving a black-and-white-coated test tube in its wake.

Don’t worry, we practice safe combustion.  This was all done with goggles and in a flame hood.  Sashes closed.