I should have a plan. The warnings keep coming. Transportation is not an issue. I work from home. But I still need to walk my dog. I have enough ingredients to make chicken soup and beef stew. Cereal, eggs, are shelved as usual. The temperature inside my house can be regulated with the push of a button. The upstairs always gets hot. Kitchen-level is comfortable and the basement, cool. It’s the opposite of how air outside works. And the air outside is changing.
The red berries on my holly bush have turned black. Ice encases all the tree branches. Squirrels hide in their dens. Plowed snow mounds tower above my head. January in Chicago is cold. The city averages seven days of below zero temperatures annually. Its coldest official temperature was -27 degrees on January 20th in 1985. I was young then and single. During the winter of 2013-14 there were 23 days recorded with subzero temperatures. I was married then, with a teenage son. Why was I fretting now?
