A Couple of Things I've Realized This Winter:

1.) After a few days of arctic temperatures (I’m talking about 0˚ and -20˚ windchill type of cold), It is amazing to me how much warmer 28˚ can feel on this side of that kind of arctic cold. I mean, when I walked my dog yesterday, I could still feel my legs and my face didn’t feel like it had frozen off after the first 5 minutes. That was a definite improvement from those arcticly cold days that kept us all indoors and out of school earlier this week. It’s all about perspective.

2.) I’ve also realized that I’ve become a bona fide germaphobe. I was always partially there, but over the Christmas break my husband inflicted the movie Contagion upon me, and I do not think I will ever recover from it. Don’t get me wrong, it was fascinating to watch and think about how the various organizations go about defining and investigating and handling a disease epidemic. But for suggestible types like me, the discussion about how often people touch their faces with their hands and then touch other things, for instance, gave me the heebie jeebies and I will never get over it. It was a true study in how germs are spread, and let me just say, I am scarred, I tell you. I had to go to the post office today, and as I approached that door, the thought crossed my mind that no-telling how many people, and what unknown percentage of those might, just might, have been flu-or-worse infected at that, had touched that door, or worse, had wiped their nose and then touched that door. So, I did what any right-thinking germaphobe might and I pulled my jacket sleeve over my hand and pushed the door with my arm, carefully not putting my hand on the door. Then I promptly forgot as I walked back out and as soon as my hand hit that door, the thought came, “How many flu people might have touched that and now your hand has touched it. Infected! Ah, and now you touched your keys with that hand. AHHHHHHH!” So, the less crazy part of me was not worrying, while the part of me that will never, and I mean never, forget that stupid movie, remembered the Wet Wipes in the car, and proceeded to wipe down my hands and my keys and even the steering wheel for good measure. The rational side of my brain was sarcastically saying, “Won’t be long before you’re like Monk and yelling, ‘Wipe! Wipe!’ every time you feel that germy feeling,” while the crazier side of my brain was saying, “At least I had wipes to deal with this emergency!”

Clearly I have a problem.