Baby, It's Cold Outside

It’s cold. Oh my God, it is COLD. I’m not a very winter-y person to begin with. I don’t like snow and ice. And I especially hate this kind of cold. It’s insanely cold—the kind where you put on a thick wool sweater, your wool winter coat, a nice fluffy fleece hat, triple layer fleece gloves, the world’s warmest scarf (hand knit to be extra long in double layer from a nice wool/acrylic blend to make it washable), and thick soled shoes, and yet within 2 minutes of leaving your home, you’re frozen to the core. You clean off your car and let it warm up, yet the windshield immediately freezes over when you get in and start to drive, even though your defroster is going full blast.

The only good part of cold weather is that you get to wear a hat. I love hats and mourn the fact that we no longer wear hats as a matter of course. It just looks so much more elegant and polished. The proper hat can frame and flatter your face like nothing else. Fashion dictates aside, hats protect you from cold and from sun, the latter being especially important. I don’t know about you guys, but I never leave the house without sunscreen. Wearing a hat gives you even more protection, giving you the advantage of not only avoiding melanoma (and the attendant bothersome treatments and risk of dying), but also wrinkles and other blemishes derived from sun damage. I am convinced that one of the major reasons why I’m still getting carded nearly a decade after becoming “of age” is because I take very good care of my skin.[/public service lecture]

Anyway, the fact is that you generally only find cute hats for winter. I have several in differing styles. I’m not particularly concerned with making sure that everything (scarf, hat, gloves) is all matchy-matchy. Close totally counts. One of my hats is black with purple, blue, and white threads twisted around the edges, ending in a puff of the same fine threads. Another is a very dark indigo rolled brim hat. Julio tells me that I look British in it. Death tells me that I look like I’m off to a garden society party. But by far my favorite hat is what War calls my “joker hat”. It’s square, so when you put it on, it makes two little ear-like points. Each of those points ends in a short multi-colored tassel. Small flowers in the same colors as the tassels are embroidered across the part of the brim that hits your forehead. Finbar hates this hat, but everyone else I know loves it.

But let me tell you, when it gets this cold, wearing a cute hat is NOT compensation enough for crawling out from under the very warm feather bed this morning. I need to become independently wealthy so that I can just stay in bed on cold days like this. I guess the bright side (heh. no pun intended.) is that the sun has been shining all day long. I'm sitting facing the windows in the library to enjoy it as long as possible. Spring, come quickly! I can't wait to see you again!