Hi, everybody.

There are excellent essays on this site right now. This is not one of them. So if you're looking for stirring political discourse from impassioned, intelligent people, just tap that spot called "Community Content" up-page and head for those much better corners of the site. This is where those of a less stirring nature can gather round the fire and swap tales they'll tell their grandchildren of when they froze their tuchases off in 2019. Basically, I didn't know where else to comment, so use this space.

For many of us, it's kinda wintry out there. More than usual.

(Donning my grampa glasses now as I recall a winter in my youth) In the deep dark past I lived in the north. Really north. Arctic storm-track north. One of the things I was doing at that juncture of my career was editing Hudson Bay Company journals from the late nineteenth century, written at an outpost close to Point Barrow, and as we read their dutifully logged daily weather reports we'd note "Hey, that's warmer than here!"

But even "here" there was one day that everyone remembers. A weekday, when you woke up to a voice on your alarm radio telling you in a stern but supportive voice that the police were advising everyone to stay inside, don't go out. The temperature was minus-30 Fahrenheit, and the wind chill was eighty below. Just in case that did not sink in, they recounted that just that morning a local resident, in pajamas and robe and slippers, had opened his front door to pick up the morning newspaper (this alone tells you how long ago this was) to have the latest to read over his first cup of coffee. The wind sucked the door shut behind him, and he died on his front step, in minutes. So they said. Maybe it was made up, but it was certainly plausible, as we'd find out.

I had to go outside that day, or I thought I did. One of the most important days of the year to be at my post. All of us were supposed to be there. I lived a few blocks from where I needed to go, and we had a winter habit of walking a couple of blocks, ducking into a store to warm up, walking another couple of blocks, again finding a store, and so on. The store owners were used to this and welcomed it; we frequently bought snacks or coffees there. We also knew how to bundle up, in layer upon layer. We were pros at this. That morning as we arrived at our destination, maybe a dozen of us out of the hundred or so who should have been there in any other circumstance, we all looked at each other and cracked up laughing, at least as much as you can crack up laughing through frozen breath. Every one of us had frostbite, very minor frostbite just on the lobes of the ears or the tip of the nose, but it was frostbite. You knew when it happened from the feel of it, and you saw the purple patches on your fellow idiots who'd made it in. Needless to say, the day was a waste from the job side of things, but it was one of those moments in your life that you use to measure all other moments.

I say all this (taking off my grampa glasses) because I just saw something I had heard of, especially in the north, but never (skeptic that I am) actually, indisputably seen. The wind has been kicking up for hours here in southeastern Pennsylvania, stuff not nailed down is looking for other yards to cavort across, and the temperatures are headed lower. Faucets are set on a tiny drip, to prevent frozen pipes. I have enough food for a month, rich hearty things like stews and lasagna. And three pounds of coffee and tea and whatnot. I mentioned I'm a pro, didn't I?

But just now I looked out my front window, to the street no more than thirty feet away, across its two lanes to the opposite sidewalk, and no further. Everything beyond that was missing. You could see the snowflakes racing horizontally on the wind -- blizzard-style -- but they were engulfed in a fog as dense as any I've ever seen. An honest-to-god snow-fog. And I just have to say it's the most beautiful thing you'll ever see. If, that is, you're set with warm digs and lots of food and no need to go out for anything. The people driving in this are nuts.

So, knowing that some of you out there are experiencing your own special winters, I thought this site could use a break, a coffee or hot chocolate break, preferably near a crackling woodstove, to report in on what is happening in your neck of the woods. It's an Open Thread when every chink in the house should be closed. How're ya farin', c99ers?