Freezing My Butt Off In Illinois

Brrrrrr. I repeat. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr. I’m at my Dad’s house, freezing my butt off. Overnight it dropped to 9 degrees. The cold temperatures, coupled with a stiff wind off the river, made it difficult to keep the house heated to much more than 70 degrees last night. I slept under a mountain of blankets. The high today is expected to be 21 and the low 19, but at least the wind has died down, so it’s warmer inside the house today.

Since I’m a vegetarian and Dad’s a carnivore, the only thing in his refrigerator I can eat is processed cheese food slices and white bread, thus we’re leaving momentarily to do some grocery shopping. I am less than delighted to be going out in this weather, what with my persistent sinus infection and stuffed up head, but to make it even worse snow is on the way, with an accumulation of up to three inches expected. Several days ago I drove through a snowstorm in the mountains of Kentucky and yesterday I had to deal with freezing rain during the drive between Cincinnati and Illinois. I think driving through three inches of snow would probably be pressing my luck. We have to get to the grocery store and back before the white stuff starts to stick on the road.

On the positive side, the hotel in Clearwater Beach found my camera battery and charger and is mailing it to me. Yes, I left it plugged into the wall, which also means I deviated from my normal procedure of alternating batteries (read about my conundrum in this previous post). I’m going to assume that means I’m just stressed out and not paying attention, rather than the possibility that I’m getting senile.

Well, I guess I can’t put it off any longer. This is me, freezing in Illinois despite being bundled up in three layers of coats, headed out to the grocery store to buy window putty (my father’s name for Tofu).