Coldpocalypse

The Northeast may be going through Snowmageddon... Well, Texas is going through the Coldpocalypse. It may or may not become the Ice or Snowpocalypse... It's supposed to snow on Thursday night. Fingers crossed?

Yesterday, I finally turned on my heat, considering the temperatures hovered around the high 20s and the low 30s, with the windchill as low as the high teens. This is weather that not many Texans know how to deal with, especially considering most of us were in shorts and tshirts over the weekend. Today is even colder (the temperature was 18 degrees outside with a windchill of 4!) and when I woke up, expecting to feel cozy and warm, happy to have waved my white flag and conceded to central heat (I have been telling myself that I, too, have been participating in a sort of "Furnace Wars", a competition that one of my favorite knitter celebrities, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) created years ago with her family. It's a competition to see who can last the longest each winter without turning on their heat. This is a much harder war to win up in Canada where she lives though!) when, to my surprise and immediate chagrin, I noticed my nose was cold. If my heat was on, why was my nose cold? The answer came quickly: my heat wasn't on. Actually, nothing was on. I had no power. (Also, it was 48 degrees in my room. BRR.)

Hooray, Coldpocalypse!

The entirety of Texas has turned their heat on and so the entirety of Texas has been exepriencing rolling blackouts. I still had school this morning, though, because my fancy university has its own fancy power plant and so it generates all it's own electricity.

The funniest part of the Coldpocalypse has been my friends' Facebook statuses. They are things like:

"18 degrees with rolling blackouts in Austin? Ladies and gentlemen, hell is freezing over."

"I can't feel my face! I can't feel my hands or feet AND I can't feel my body! OMG I DON'T EXIST! WAIT... 'I think, therefore I am.' Thank you, Descartes for the only affirmation of my existence today."

"I really think weather forecasters shouldn't give the temperatures like they do. 'Oh, it's 31 degrees... But it's gonna feel like 19 because of wind and no sunlight.' Really? Which one of those is more important?"

"I totally woke up this morning hoping for a barely lukewarm shower by a single dim candle followed by the inability to charge my phone. FALSE. I wished for none of these and would like a refund please."

"I would like to thank the rolling blackouts for my day off work and the roaring fire that I have every excuse to have. Huzzah!"

Everyone stay warm! I'm going to burrow under another blanket and revel in the power I temporarily have!