Weather or Not

Hartford’s Samuel L. Clemons, better known to the world as Mark Twain, once noted, “Climate is what we expect, the weather is what we get.” 

I suspect he’d find what’s passing for our current winter weather to be somewhere between amusing and frustrating (perhaps simultaneously) though on that recent morning when the mercury at my house started the day seven below zero I warmed myself by remembering this quote, “Cold!. If the thermometer had been an inch longer, we’d have frozen to death.”

I was smiling that day as I left the house. Years ago, my wife installed a monitor from our weather station on the frame of our backdoor just down the hall from the closet where we keep our outer clothes, coats, jackets, scarves, and mittens. 

Her theory was you could check the outside temperature as you're readying to depart and keep the 'whoa!' sharp intake of a sudden surprise to a minimum when you step out the door from the kitchen to the back landing.

I am so gentrified. We called the back landing a stoop when I was a kid in Jersey, which is what it still is. It's not like I live in the part of Connecticut where I and my stockbroker neighbors have servants who wash our cars with domestic light beer or build a twin-hulled catamaran to challenge for America's Cup. 

I’ll concede we do have a big backyard, but not big enough for a polo pony, so pardon me while I remember NOT to dye my roots or frost my tips but to call things by their real names (I think Royce would have been a good name for the horse, btw).

What’s that song, ‘can you tell a green field from a cold, steel rail?’ This may surprise you, but I can, though I don’t recall anyone asking. What were once vices are now habits. 

Recently worlds collided at various points and times when I’d check the outside thermometer during the week and, like at your house, had the numbers range from the aforementioned seven below zero (that merited a double take) to just north of forty-five. Habit still has me check, though I confess the numbers have no effect on my decision to go outside. 

In terms of Galvanic Skin Response, GSR, the skin on my face could (at least in theory) better and more easily tell a difference in the percentage of moisture in the mid-double digits far easier than a difference in temperature of two degrees (maybe at Kelvin, but only maybe). But I chance a glance every time I pass the display, just in case…

Do I risk some form of a cerebral surprise if I don't check the gauge before stepping outside and, because I do, am I minimizing the possibility of atmospheric ambush? Hand on my heart, no clue, and truth to tell, I don't know why I look, except out of, you guessed it, habit.

In the summer, if/when the display was to be a triple-digit reading (which has happened), I admit I do pause for a moment but I’ve yet to be tempted to disrobe and leave my clothing (neatly) piled on the kitchen floor before heading out for a walk. And that sigh of relief you may have just heard was probably my neighbors, grateful for one less bad habit of mine. 
-bill kenny