My folks had planned to fly to Reno to spend Christmas with my brother and his family, but Colorado weather intervened, and they were snowbound bigtime. A storm that comes once every ten or so years. I called on skype to make sure they were ok, and had a long talk this morning. They are well, and the govt system seemed to work well: three feet of snow across the state, no deaths; a day later the streets are plowed and they can make it to safeway - alas, no bananas.
I told them Chiang Mai was about 48 degrees (9 C) - and they laughed a that's-not-winter' laugh. Then I asked them what their thermostat was set to, and they said, about 70. Well, when it's 48 in Chiang Mai, it's 48 inside and out. In the bathroom, and the kitchen. Our house has an electric water heater for the shower, which at these temps, just takes the bite out of the cold. So go take a cool shower in 48 degree weather, and then tell me you ain't cold. They saw the difference.
Another such storm occurred on Christmas eve, when I was still a young buck living at home. My dad and I drove across denver in our 1969 Ford stationwagon - swimmingpool green - to pick up my stubbornly independent 88 year-old granny, who everyone called Granny. We got there, and got stranded. Blowing snow got under the hood and into the distributer cap; dad showed me what happened. The city declared an emergency and forbade traffic. We were rule followers. And now there are no more distributer caps. And my mom spent that Christmas morning alone. The next day I carried Granny like my new bride through hip deep snow to our trusty stationwagon, with a dry distributer cap, for the careful journey across town to home. The emergency had lifted, and the sky was blue as I lifted that small amazing woman who was born in New York in 1892 and went to Easter Sunday services in a horse and buggy through the unbroken snow in front of her condo. My Granny. I was a young buck, but I'm not a big guy, and even though she was as small fragile woman, it was hard for me to keep her above the deep snow. It's a memory that I am proud of. Dad drove us good, and got us home safe. My dad, the fighter pilot.
