Cold Snap, Hard Freeze

-14° campers.  Yes, minus fourteen degrees, 14 below zero. That's what the thermometer outside the kitchen window said on Sunday morning. It was undoubtedly the coldest temperature we have ever experienced in the Colestin since we bought our place in 1995. Sequoia and I were reminiscing today about the two years we lived in Bend Oregon where 20 below is not unusual, but here on the west side of the Cascades, subzero temps are not the norm. Monday was slightly warmer, a balmy zero at dawn, but it was down in the low teens again by sunset. Sequoia got a blazing fire going in the hot tub and I scurried up steps in my robe and rubber clogs, breathing clouds of steam. The trick is to kick one shoe off, put that foot in the tub, pull the robe up around my ass while straddling, kick the other shoe off, put my second foot into the tub and then pull the robe off over my head while simultaneously lowering myself into the hot water.  It takes balance to make that transition from one foot in the tub to two feet in the tub, and it takes concentration not to drop my robe in the water, but anything worth having is worth working for, right?  The hot tub was 108° which, in most cases, melts the flesh right off my bones. But I was already up on the deck with one foot in the tub and my ass hanging, out; what was I going to do, back out?  Stepping out of the bitter cold into the blazing hot was a new kind of tingle, I'll say that.  After about 5-6 minutes, the heat became unbearable and I stood up.  The cold felt delicious for the first 30 seconds or so; after that it was back into the water. I bobbed up and down like a cork for about 20 minutes and then dunked one more time to get myself good and hot for the walk back down the stairs.  When I got to the house, I realized that the damp at the nape of my neck was frozen; I had ice in my hair. 

Of course the pipes froze at the Oak Street house.  For the last six weeks, Sequoia and I have been working on that house as hard as we've worked on anything in years. Think sore muscles and torn up hands. We managed to finish the rental unit by December 1, just in time for our lovely new tenant Alissa to move in.  Our side of the house is still a construction zone mess, not at all set up for sleeping, so we've been driving back and forth to the Colestin during the ice storm.  I stayed out in the Colestin all weekend, hunkered down and warm; it was bliss. Then Alissa called on Sunday to say that the pipes in the rental unit had frozen. It took some doing, but Sequoia got everything flowing again. My hero.  Welcome to the life of a landlord.

Even though this transition has been harder, longer and more expensive than we had hoped, I am convinced that buying this house in Ashland was the right choice.  It is time to change my life, campers.  I love my life in the Colestin, but I've got another 10 years in the working world, one way or another. I can't face driving over that pass for another 10 years.  I'm dense, but even I can see the handwriting on that wall.  

The phrase "hard freeze" very accurately sums up the last week.  It has been a hard, frozen week in more ways than one. Breathe deep the frosty air and move forward, campers. Move forward.