BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

When I moved to Virginia, I had (far in the back of my mind) the notion that I was moving to a Southern state with the mild weather than implies. In fact, it was one of the few impediments to my proposed move because, being ever so slightly slug-nutty, I adore cold weather. The karmic force governing this part of the world is having a big old horse guffaw pretty much nonstop right now - and a wave of my middle finger toward so-called "global warming" - because it's frudging COLD outside right now. I awakened to 18 degrees with - wind chill factor considered - 0 degrees. Brrrrrrr! I like cold weather (I'm an ice skater after all), but even I am distressed by this deep freeze!

The thing that's fairly amusing is that by tomorrow the highs are predicted for the low 40s, and by Sunday we're expecting temperatures of 60 degrees or so. Just so things aren't boring, don't you know.

Think I'll pile into bed under the covers as soon as I get home tonight, grab my fur-bearing critter for a serious cuddle and go to sleep early, early, early! Thank goodness for the wonders of DVRs. I won't miss a thing!

Every so often I kind of take a minute and ponder all that I have seen in my life and it occurs to me that, when I was born, there were television sets but ordinary folk didn't have them. I was about 3 when we got our first set - and we got one that quickly because my Dad sold them. We had a coal furnace, water from a well, milk from our cows, eggs and chicken that we raised ourselves, produce that we grew ourselves and enjoyed in the summer and then canned for winter use in the autumn. My earliest memories are of sitting snuggled up on the couch with my mother and father and our cocker spaniel and my cat, in front of the fireplace, while my father read to us from Shakespeare or the Bible. He had a resonant and very pleasing voice and I think in those earliest days of my childhood it was the sound of his voice that soothed and gave pleasure, much more than the words.

Telephones you could plug in yourself never really came into general use until I was close to 30 and I remember a family friend who happened to work for the phone company and who also was possessed of a black lab of voracious appetite that routinely ATE Sadie's telephone receivers. Highly embarrassing since Sadie was an executive with the phone company and she was constantly having to call repairpersons out to replace her instruments! Of course the dog would eat anything that didn't eat him first, including the concrete floor of Sadie's basement, baseboards, wicker baskets, rolls of paper towels and, on one memorable occasion a Playtex girdle! MacGinnis was the most lovable dog on earth - but a chewer of monumental proportions!

In the mid-70s I remember getting my first cable channel - I think it was called "On" - I thought I was hot stuff. In the 80s I got a VCR and in 1988 I bought an RCA 19" color TV so I could watch the winter Olympics! I just replaced that set at the end of last year! Way to go RCA! When DVD players came into wide use I swore I'd never purchase one. I didn't. I bought two! I saw absolutely no reason to have a cell phone. I have one. There was no reason to own a computer, and yet I'm on my 4th or 5th one. And when I was entering high school, I was so excited to receive a Remington portable typewriter on which it was expected I would do my homework. My clock radio has a CD player in it and I have 4 other CD players scattered throughout my life along with countless and varied CDs. And I have digital cable with 200 or more channels - and often it seems there's little to watch!

I think that with all the technological gadgets at our command, the best and most valued things we can possess are good friends and loving pets and a secure home. And I had that way before there was such a thing as a cell phone!