Getting (A) Cold

In case you haven't seen it on the weather, lately, Minneapolis has had an amazingly warm stretch of weather in the past week. We rocketed out of the deep freeze that we've been in and had a couple of afternoons in the 40s and even bopped up against 50.

The snow has been melting. I've been able to walk the pup in the mornings without being afraid my face would fall off. And I've even gotten to wear one of the jackets I used to wear in the winter in Baltimore (which, out here, is more of a fall/spring jacket).

Unfortunately, the weather is changing as I type this. Instead of having an overnight low of 35 degrees tonight (like we did last night), tonight we're supposed to be back into the low 20s. You can hear the wind whipping around the house tonight as the cold front moves in. After a week of pre-spring, this feels like the re-onset of serious winter.

And, you know, that's not all that surprising. After all, spring doesn't really start in this part of the country until March or April. Our average highs are really only supposed to be in the low 30s in February, so we've all known that we were walking around in borrowed weather.

But, somehow, this change in weather has started taking its toll on people all around. Everyone seems to be coming down with colds. Multiple people in my office (and, remember, there are only about 20 people in the entire company) have started coming down with colds and sinus issues.

Today, while the fog was so thick that I couldn't even see the downtown skyline FROM downtown, I started to feel that weird gunk at the back of my throat. One of my co-workers has been out sick "coughing like a dying person's cough" (her words) for the past two days. Another went from using her normal voice to about an octave lower in the course of the day, today.

Ah... The lovely reminders that we're not done with winter. Or that it's not done with us.