Yikes!

This desert rat doesn't know from 8 degrees, but he's loving it!

My mom was born and raised in Wisconsin.  As a young man, my dad resided in New York. Both have lived with snow and cold weather. But nothing in my own experience has prepared me for days and days of living, working, and driving in it.

Surprisingly, I think I'm adapting pretty well (a few incidents notwithstanding).  Of course, I'm not stuck outside waiting for a bus every morning like my Ben, but it seems that much as in Phoenix when the temperature goes over 110 it starts to feel all the same, when the temp here drops below freezing, it works pretty much the same way.

The barely-used fleece-lined jacked I purchased about a dozen years ago (for the color, not its supposed warmth—I was living in San Francisco at the time) does live up to its advertised qualities, and has kept me comfortable enough through this that I don't foresee having to replace it with anything else.