Okay, Seriously - Anyone Alive Up There?!

Is it just me or have temperatures in the Great White North (well, the centre of the continent part) remained steadily south of minus 20 for close to four weeks now?

I track your weather beside mine on my little desktop icons and, while my usual response is to shake my head in disbelief at how cold it is up there while thinking better you than me (accompanied by just the slightest of snickers noting the difference between "balmy" Minneapolis and relatively more frigid Winnipeg), I am starting to become concerned.

Not that you're not up for the challenge, of course. But today, when our temps plunged to an as-yet-unseen -21, and the wall of glacial air hit me as I went outside, I thought, my word they've been doing this for over a month. By the time I got to work, I'd achieved that spinal compression that accompanies a Manitoban winter - the one derived from hunching over while trying to maintain one's core warmth for months at a time and that leads to 'Tobans looking a bit like the missing link each spring as they once again become homo erectus - and wondered whether any of you have stood up straight since November.

One day of this and I've become a complaining, whining, shivering mess who wears her mittens in the office. And yet you all soldier on, muttering curses to yourselves while yelling "it's a dry cold!!" in defiance against the dark, unfeeling night. Weary but not broken, you faithfully plug in your cars, hold indoor recess, and still enjoy a slurpee for a nightcap.

Toques off to you, my friends! Relief cometh on the weekend, where my trusty weather icon tells me you'll be up to a balmy minus one. Hopefully we're headed back there as well; I've become too soft for this and I don't think my family can take the whining for much longer.