Winter Thaw

Today in Denver, for the first time all week, the temperature finally made it above freezing.

It's been crazy cold here for six days now. One of my co-workers, coming into work early on a morning this week, walked in and found it so cold, he just had to look online at notoriously cold places to see how they compared to Denver that morning. He found that the 7:00 AM temperature of -9 Fahrenheit was at that moment actually lower than the temperature at the North Pole. Damn.

This was also the first day all week that everything in my car worked right. The CD player stops working basically below freezing. Pop in a disc, it'll spin it for a while, give you an error message, and eject it back out at you. I suppose I should finally spring for that new stereo I've sometimes thought about... my MP3 player would not care about such things when I plug it in.

Somewhat more annoying, the washer fluid hasn't sprayed since Monday. I don't think it froze in the tank, but I suspect it froze in the feeder tubes, or perhaps just in the tiny, syringe-size metal openings where it's supposed to come out. Angelic choirs sang tonight as I began my drive home without having to bring a wet paper towel along with my car keys.

Overall though, I'm not complaining. My car actually started every morning this week, even though I park it outside. And it only struggled to start just once, and then only for a moment. Impressive, considering the car's a "California native," having passed from its former owner (FKL!) to me back when I was living in Virginia, a place that would never have to concern itself with this kind of cold. "Bianca," as FKL named the car (and I still occasionally call her), has performed admirably.

But I still say something's off when "at freezing" outside feels nice and warm for a change.