17

As in 17 degrees is the current temperature outside. Sane people should stay inside when thermometers outside read 17 degrees. Don and I spent close to ten minutes layering on everything from thermals under jeans to a secondary pair of gloves before heading out to walk our doggies this morning. It was still pretty nippy. We trekked the mile and half circle down our street, out onto the major artery to the middle school, back around by the elementary, and back past the pond on our end of the street. We saw another dog-walking couple out bundled up like we were, a crazy man running in shorts and sleeveless track shirt, and that was about it for company outside on this less than hospitable day.
It could be worse. Don relates the Packers & Giants will be playing today on an open-air field with a projected temperature of three degrees. (He also says that's not even the record for coldest game played in the NFL. Cincinnati played San Diego in 1981 in -9 degree weather with a windchill of -59. Yikes.) He figures that's why those guys get paid the big bucks. I wonder if there was ever a crazy group of parents who sent their kids out to play in similar cold? I have seen some crazy competitive parents on the soccer field, in the dance studio, and certainly in the classroom, and I strongly believe they can be found on football fields. Actually, I know they can. I graduated from a W. Texas high school ever-so-slightly post Friday Night Lights. The player parents and coaches are rabid when it comes to football, but so is everyone else in town so it can be hard to pick them out of the crowd wearing team colors.