A bitter cold perspective.

After our movie night last night, the news came on.  Headlines: Fire.  Again.  It's a terrible plague this time of year that truly is devastating.  My prayers and thoughts are with the brave fireman (and Firewomen, to be PC, and because I don't know the proper androgynous term...Firepersonel?) who are fighting tirelessly in conditions that I can barely imagine.  What they do, really is nothing short of extraordinary.

However...the reporter covering the story was talking about the conditions that the fireman were experiencing: low winds, high humidity.  But according to the reporter, the "bitter cold" was making fighting the fire VERY difficult.  It was 30.  The shot cuts from the reporter wearing a jacket made of something that looked like alpaca and a scarf, to the fireman in their gear, some of the jackets undone at the top while they rested and regrouped or were interviewed.

Bitter cold.  It was 30.  I laughed.  Actually, out loud.  I've been in 30 degree weather in jeans and a light sweatshirt.  It was 60 here and I was in jeans and a t-shirt.  While I may not classify 30 as bitter cold, I stopped to think about that statement for a minute.  And thankfully, my wonderful wife brought a better perspective to my thoughts.  There I was in jeans a t-shirt, scoffing at the sentiment of "bitter cold", and next to me was my wife bundled up in a blanket.

She often calls me Harry, due to the fact that I have a cynical side that mirrors the character Harry in the movie When Harry Met Sally.  At the end of the film he says to Sally, "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out."  71 for my wife is COLD.  81 for my wife is a little chilly.  Unless the temperature starts with a '9' or has three digits, it's cold.  And typically, I'm sweating.  We laugh in the car because the rule, stated by Brittney, is, "If I'm cold, you're comfortable.  If I'm warm, you're hot.  If I'm hot, you're dying."

To some, it may actually be bitter cold.  Not me, really.  But that's just one.  That reporter standing on the hillside in 30 degree weather may have been freezing her face off, hating every moment of that report.  I would have loved the cold.  That doesn't make either of us more correct.  While there may be some on the tundra of Tibet that are in 10 degree weather thinking, "Hey it's a beautiful day!", my wife would be a human Otter-pop.  It's all about perspective.