Brrr! Humbug!

I have been freezing all week. In the house, in the car, outside, in bed, in my classroom, in the lunchroom...I can not get warm. Our classroom thermostats were set at 72 for heat, and 80 for cooling. Oh, and they shut down at 4:00, with the heat set at 60, I believe. Because last night at the Winter Choir Concert, I stopped by my room and it was down to 67. I know that when I arrive in the mornings, it is 69. Not that this fact is remarkable, because most of the day it is 69 degrees in my room. I wear my coat. The kids wear coats. Not all of the kids. Some of them come in without a jacket. They are the ones who complain, "It's COLD in here." Even when I cheat on my thermostat and set it for 73 (!!!), the temperature in my room stays at 69. If I stretch my hands up over my head, I can sometimes make the numbness go away. Whoever thought that putting the heating vents in the ceiling was a good idea needs to live in my classroom for a week. In the winter.

The lunch room has a draft. That draft comes from the kitchen, wherein the cooks prop open the door to the parking lot because they get too hot. The cold air rushes past them and into the lunch room to my table. I wear my coat to lunch. Future comedians think I am fair game for the "Are you cold?" routine. Yes. I am cold. I do not wear my coat in the building just to garner attention. I am truly cold. And the coat does not help. Much. I put my arms up into the opposite sleeves to get my hands warm enough to grasp a pen. I draw the line at wearing gloves inside the building. Today, when I backed into my regular parking spot, I told the #1 son, "I hate to get out. It is so cold inside." He looked at me. "Don't you mean OUTSIDE, Mom? Because you just said it is cold inside." I had to explain. "Of course I meant INSIDE. That's where I spend my whole day. The 30 seconds I spend walking in is not the problem. It is the entire day inside in the cold that I am not looking forward to."

The Mansion thermostat is set at 72. Most of the time, it is actually 72 degrees inside. But I am cold. I need a blanket over me as I recline in the recliner. If I had a shawl, I would wear it. I hate to take my hand out from under the blanket to use the remote. The end of my nose is like ice. I miss the days when The Pony was an infant. He was a regular little hand-held warming device. All I had to do was lay him on my chest, with his downy little head up under my chin, and I was good to go. He was a regular furnace, that boy, my February baby.

Dictator H prefers a quilt on the bed. I, myself, am partial to comforters. The quilt lays heavily on my toes, and does not provide the warmth I require. A cuddle with Dictator H and his breather is out of the question. That breather sprays its cold, cold breath on me all night. After my morning hot shower, in the 30 minutes I have to recline in the recliner, I can get almost toasty warm. But then I have to take an arm out from under The Pony's Yu-Gi-Oh throw blanket that I cover with to call my mom. After that, I am not getting truly warm again until the next morning.

Even in T-Hoe, with his magical heated seats, I am not warm enough. My butt area gets warm, but the seat back heater is not so hot, and I can either have the defroster drying out my eyeballs with cold feet, or the windshield foggy with lukewarm feet. The hands are cold no matter what setting I use. Gloves only make them colder.

I am better preserved than Ted Williams's head.