I won't treat you like you're typical

Baby, it's COLD outside!

The last few days, the meteorology people around town have been all a-twitter about this Siberian storm front headed our way.  It's here!

My weatherbug shows the temperature as one whole degree F.  Wind is 20mph.  That equates to a windchill of freaking cold.

So it was back on the bus for me this morning.  I arrived at the bus stop in all my bundled glory to find a large grocery bag full of a variety of snack bars sitting on the bus bench.  Was that left there intentionally or by accident?  I like to think that someone purposely left it there for bus rider freebies.  Still, I didn't take one - candy from strangers and all that.

Once on the bus, a woman I've ridden with before sat bundled.  She's also a student at the university - computer science.  Last time I rode it was snowing and she was singing "Let it Snow" at the bus driver's request.  

She actually has a very good singing voice.  When I first climbed aboard and heard it, I thought it was the music streaming through the bus radio.  

"You're not going to sing to us this morning?", I asked her

She covered her face, a little embarrassed, and said, "Well, the weather outside IS frightful...", but didn't break into further song.

Instead, we went into a more geeky conversation - she all computer science, me all engineer turned math teacher.  It occurred to her at one point that "Next March, we'll be able to celebrate a whole pi month instead of just pi day!"  Simple nerd pleasures, I can hardly wait.

For the ride home, I glanced out toward the bus stop from a windowed area in the University Center.  A woman in a motorized wheelchair was also there.

"Are you waiting for the 9 bus?", she asked me

"Yes, is that the one you're waiting for?"  

"Yeah, except I don't want to go out there because it's snowing and I'm in a wheelchair with no gloves and things are about to get real with this weather", she perceived.

I made sure the driver waited for her as things had gotten "real" since the morning.  It's snowing harder now, and sticking to everything.  I've shoveled the driveway, but you wouldn't know it.

I think the changes in atmospheric pressure are making the animals stranger than usual too.  My plecostomus, Jansen, has stopped his usual cleaning routine.  I got him a couple three months ago when it seemed that the fallout from the fishtank apocalypse had passed.  He went right to work and scrubbed that place clean.  But now, all he does is hang out with his fins up on the heater.  Drinking beers.  

My aquarium thermometer shows happy temperature, and I'll note that I keep the thermometer at the opposite end of the tank from the heater.  Yet it's as if Jansen's gone on a one-fish union strike.  The algae is getting the upper hand.  

Then there's the cat:

What does he think that is?  A heat sink?

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