Our oranges are frozen, our pipes are bursting, and our PG
&
amp;E bills are rising. The power in my igloo
– um, home – went out on Thursday morning and we were without
heat for a while.
Our oranges are frozen, our pipes are bursting, and our PG&E bills are rising. The power in my igloo – um, home – went out on Thursday morning and we were without heat for a while.
My hands and lips are chapped. I keep my jacket on all day. My feet freeze when they hit the tile in the bathroom. My truck has ice on its windshield in the morning and my outdoor plants are dying.
Being an optimist, I did notice that the sun was out yesterday, but that did little to melt away the chill. Last weekend’s lows in Hollister – counting Friday morning’s balmy 26 – added up to 71 degrees. Three days and a total of 71 degrees! I fell asleep in California and woke up in Nova Scotia.
We’re spoiled here, so we complain when it gets chilly. But since we have to pay more than $500,000 for an average-sized house, we pay for the right to complain.
We get excited when we see a dusting of snow on the Diablo or Gabilan mountains that border our county’s eastern and western borders, respectively.
We cringe when our car’s outside temperature gauge reads “ICE.” We line up at Java Express, opening our windows only to order, pay, and collect a hot beverage.
People visiting us from any state east of California dismiss our whining with a “pshaw!” But we aren’t accustomed to this weather. And we don’t use “pshaw” in the Sunshine State, baby.
In ‘Baler Alley at San Benito High School on Thursday morning, it was so cold that black ice developed near the well-traveled drop-off spot on the north side of campus. Maintenance workers strung warning tape between orange cones to keep students out, but some adventurous or oblivious teens ignored the barrier and tried to walk through the area. They slipped, they fell, they were embarrassed. The wore their California-ness on their sleeves as they wore ice on their hindquarters.
So yesterday as I’m freezing, bundled up, and trying to type with cracked hands, I read that the end of the world is five minutes away. Great, you’d think we could at least end the world with some global warming days so we could wear shorts and T-shirts and spend some time at the beach.
A group of prominent scientists this week moved its symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight – which will bring nuclear apocalypse and/or environmental disaster. For those wanting to synchronize your personal doomsday tickers, the time is now 11:55.
Aaaaah!
Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed to return the video games that were due to Blockbuster last week.
I certainly don’t mean to make light of this countdown, because I think we all share the atomic scientists’ concerns about “a second nuclear age prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.” The group also cited climate change as a world-ending threat.
According to the Associated Press, the Doomsday Clock started at seven minutes to midnight in 1947, in the post-World War II days. It nearly hit midnight – 11:58 – in 1953 and was moved backward to 11:43 after the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991. So it’s good to know that our impending demise has the potential to be delayed.
That’s good, because I need more time to take care of some unfinished business:
n I’m sure my e-mail box has unopened “YOU MUST READ THIS…FUNNY!” e-mails left to read or “SEND THIS TO 8 PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY” messages to forward. Who wants to make their bad luck worse on this final day?
n I didn’t watch last night’s “American Idol” auditions, but I did record them, so I’d try to fast forward through that show really quickly if the world truly was about to end.
n The 49ers have gotten better over the past couple of years, so the world can’t end yet. (Raiders fans may feel that it already has.)
n We’re this close to winning in Iraq; at least that’s what I’ve been hearing on Fox News.
n There is way too much ice cream still left in my freezer, so I need more time to eat it. As soon as the outside temperature rises above the temperature of the freezer, those Fudgsicles are mine!
Stay cool.
Adam Breen teaches journalism and yearbook classes at San Benito High School. He is former editor of The Free Lance.
