OFF TOPIC - the ladybug "lost" her mittens

Wasn't that fun ??? Reading this kind of tale of woe is what reminds me why I live in FL and not up North where I had to deal with those annoyances.

Lucille

I'm wondering how if the cold water in the washer was warm enough to melt the ice in the mittens.... C

It probably was. I often put an ice cube or two in Puff's water bowl in the morning and they melt fairly quickly.

Ditto!

We're pushing 70 this week already. I love winter in California.

Brrr - I went out to run errands and I AM still cold!

It's 62 and very windy here and I'm surprised at myself. I was cold when I went out and I was wearing a light leather jacket. Where are the days when I never closed my coat and/or wore a hat.

At least they were frozen to the deck so they couldn't blow away! LOL

Over 530 schools around here closed today. No snow, wind chills only predicted for -20 (current conditions = temp of +5 and wind chill of

-15). Schools in Iowa (where it was colder both in actual temp and wind chill) were mostly open or doing 2-hour delays so no buses would have to run before full sunup. And around here when the public schools close, all the private schools, preschools, and daycares follow suit. Since no businesses or government offices were closing today, all these school closings are a huge disservice--how are parents supposed to go to work when the schools and daycares won't open? And I'll bet dollars to donuts it isn't *really* because they are concerned about kids getting to school in the cold--it is because the school can save a ton of money by having a long weekend and not heating the building up or running buses today. &*$#! unconstitutional school funding issues! The Akron superintendent was actually whining in the newspaper because Akron didn't have any "snow" days last year. Whole thing makes me sick.

Brenda Lewis ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

It has been brought up here that particularly if the temp dips during Sunday night hours, 'somebody' should have been detailed off to go out and start all the school busses and leave them running, as they will never start at that low temperature. "Nobody" does, so like you, mostly they cancel school. It's fine for teachers because they are home with their kids, but as you say, not so hot for parents.

It's actually a farmer's porch so no worries there.

On the news yesterday they were discussing the weather, and that in several areas schools would likely be closed because of the excessive wind chill and not wanting kids waiting for buses, etc. Evidently in Buffalo they'd already ahd several kids with cold related injuries, and one frostbite.

I guess there are a lot of kids at work with the parents - or something.

ellice

I've heard a lot of complaints about the schools getting cancelled due to weather. Honestly, I think they should be in school, but can see the point if you have lots of kids that are on long bus routes with the wind howling.

A lot of the city kids ride the city buses instead of school-owned buses. Daycares and a lot of preschools don't even have bus service so parents take the kids there. The thing that really gets me is the newspaper is running a big series on the homeless. They really need to talk to some homeless children to find out how miserable their lives are when they don't get to spend a few hours a day in a heated school and get that hot lunch.

Oh - I know the joys of waiting for the bus. I've heard in past years, during very cold spells, of high school students having to be treated for frostbite. The buses were late and the idiots don't always wear coats.

Surely this is the real point; knowing what to do when the weather gets cold. If schools closed when wind chills got to -40 in Iqaluit, or Whitehorse, or Yellowknife, they would be closed "half" of the school year. Here in Ottawa, we never have snow days. Schools stay open as much as they can. Buses occasionally get cancelled when the weather is very bad indeed. But parents and children are expected to know how kids need to be dressed in winter.

The point is that the expectations vary by region. It's one thing to expect people to be prepared for very cold weather where it happens frequently. It's another thing to expect people to be prepared for very cold weather when it happens once a decade. I would expect the school systems to soldier on in the northern hinterlands. When Atlanta gets below zero wind chills, I'm not terribly surprised if their families and infrastructure aren't up to the job.

Best wishes, Ericka

Amen - canceling school due to cold make sense in some places and it is down right silly here in the frozen north!

Precisely.

During the worst winter in the previous 50 years, I was long-distance dating a guy who'd spent his whole life in warm places.

One day, he caught up with me at lunchtime, absolutely frantic that he had been calling for hours, where was I? They had 2" of snow and the entire county was shut down. My response was that we "only had two feet, so I have to get to class", and hung up leaving him wondering who in their right mind would say "only" two feet of snow. I clarified after class, that the person who would call it "only" two feet was the person who'd shoveled THREE feet of the bleeping stuff the week before.

Poor boy still could not fathom how we were able to get around town with

We did not even discuss the fact that at one point that winter, my area had daytime highs in the negative numbers. I couldn't have possibly explained to him that if you know how to dress for it, and you're acclimatized to it, it's not that bad to go out in something 30 degrees colder than your freezer.

OTOH, now I try to explain, with equal lack of success, how it is that I can say "cooling trend to 108" with a straight face.