As I drove home from work this afternoon I decided that living in Wisconsin in the winter is a bit like living on a frozen planet in a bad sci fi movie. If your transport pod (ie "car") happens to veer off the established route (ie. "falls into a ditch") your inevitable fate is most likely to have your frozen corpse discovered many months later baring the tooth marks of the carnivorous ice squirrels that burrowed into your body for warmth and sustenance....probably while you were still alive. Yeah, I'm a geek. I'll get to that another day.

More importantly, the current temperature (at 5:00pm) is 5 degrees above zero but it feels like negative 12. This is downright balmy compared to the temperatures we're going to get to experience over the next 24 hours or so.

A wind chill warning remains in effect until 12 pm cst Friday. Treacherous wind chills between 35 and 50 degrees below zero will exist across the area tonight into Friday morning as northwest winds continue around 10 mph, and air temperatures plummet to 15 to 25 degrees below zero. Some improvement is expected in the wind chills on Thursday afternoon back toward 20 to 30 degrees below zero, only to fall back toward 35 and 40 degrees below zero thursday night and Friday morning. A wind chill warning means the combination of very cold air and strong winds will create dangerously low wind chill values. This will result in frost bite and lead to hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken.

FIFTY DEGREES BELOW ZERO? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Please note that that is WITH the wind chill. The air temperature itself will be 25 degrees below zero. Practically summer-like. And, excuse me, but when are wind chills of 20-30 below zero considered "some improvement." And this says nothing of the fact that this weather forecast involves the word "death" (see paragraph one for my thoughts on the dangers of driving, especially in the territory of carnivorous space squirrels). Seriously. And people decided Wisconsin was a good place to cut back on the nomadic hunting and gathering thing and set up permanent settlement for what reason?

Meanwhile, we have a gigantic window and several smaller windows with no insulating shades (no shades at all, actually) and I just noticed the rubber piece that goes around the door and presumably helps to keep the cold outside where it belongs has fallen off. Fabulous.

There is a rumor going around that they're going to cancel school tomorrow. Most of the K-12 districts in the area have already closed. Maybe I'll have a "snow" day. Maybe I can teach the dogs to pee in the toilet this evening. It could come in handy tomorrow.


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