Arctic chill

10 pm Saturday:

Martin and I just watched some tv show about the North Pole. And I feel like we're living there.

Or, in North Dakota or Minnesota or some other god-forsaken place.

It's a whopping 16 degrees plus 35-mile an hour winds and there's a frigid draft cutting through the family room, rattling the window panes in their sashes. We may be indoors but we're the feeling the weather.

In our home's defense, there's no stand of trees, no woodlands or neighborhood to slow the north wind as it crests a distant ridge and rushes toward us. The house is a sitting duck.

Cranking up our expatriate thermostat -- which only measures Celsius -- does little to combat the chill seeping through the house's pores. But our oil-fed radiators are not utter failures. Nudge the thermostat to the low 20s and it's like beach week upstairs.

So, I just need to muster the courage to abandon my blanket shelter on the couch and dash around the room to off the lights. Then I can bolt up the stairs, two at a time, to where summer awaits.