The freezing weather has broken. You may call it a polar vortex, the now popular, misused term found so often in the media. I just call it cold. We’re due two or three seriously cold days a year here, and, before today, we’ve endured about 36 hours of them. <\/p>\n
It came in Monday night, when just before midnight the wind chill was -1.8<\/a>. Early Tuesday morning it was -5.5<\/a> and the low was 9 degrees.<\/p>\n Have I mentioned we live in the Deep South?<\/p>\n Today the high was 45 degrees, so we’re on our way out of this. We may as well have a picnic.<\/p>\n During the cold snap we also had a fire warning. Things were dry. It was windy. Also cold. And fires sounded great. So we burned everything. It was terribly romantic, and now everything is covered in soot. <\/p>\n OK, we didn’t. But it was tempting. <\/p>\n Returned to the pool<\/strong> today. This was the first time there since October and that’s embarrassing. Did 1,000 yards. <\/p>\n This is a warmup for swimmers. But we’re talking about me here and 1,000 yards is a cause for celebration. I fought my goggles and complained almost the entire way.<\/p>\n And now I have tiny bruises on my maxilla bone, because I can never get the straps on my goggles right. They’re constantly squeezing and still letting in water and fogging up. All of which is silly. I can control that in a mask. I can fix all of that on a mask at 80 feet underwater. <\/p>\n Goggles? Total mystery, apparently.<\/p>\n Parks and Recreation, the quiet little show that could, is celebrating 100 episodes. That’s the magic syndication number, which is why you’ll soon see this show in the most inexplicable places. Here’s a 100 episode special, which starts with Perd Hapley, who would easily be my favorite character on the show if Ron Swanson wasn’t my spirit animal. <\/p>\n