Winter in the South

It's January. What is wrong with this picture? 

This is actually a cultural test. Where Kilo and Echo and I are from, people would say, "Where's the frost? Where's the snow? Gosh, those trees are so green!"

Where I live now people would say, "Why is there a school bus running in that cold weather? Didn't they see the sign?!" 

You saw the school bus there in the middle right of the picture? No? You were distracted by the written PSA in the bottom left corner, perhaps?

I saw it. I slowed down to a respectable 20MPH and was sharp on the lookout for black ice. As I pulled in the parking lot, realization hit. It is 38F here. There is no snow. There is no ice. It is 38F.

Now, 38F is cold. See also, "winter". 

Two weeks ago in Rochester, MN it was -52F with windchill. 

People in North Carolina freaked out at the news story about the Polar Vortex. There was public consternation and when the temperature hit a low of 30F with clear skies and zero precipitation, the good folks of the South cleared out the grocery stores and cancelled school. 

People in Minnesota went back to school after a couple days. 

Please won't someone tell me what the hell is a "freeze warning"? 

And I would be so excited if someone would share with me what here in North Carolina is actually frozen?

Self Storage

One thing I never anticipated having in my life was a self-storage unit. Despite moving between locations every 6 months or so in my early 20's for college and internships and international travel experiences, my stuff stayed where it was housed...with my parents.

In fact, when dude told me about his self-storage unit the first thing that came to my mind was the Charlie King album I was in love with as a tween and his song titled "Self Storage"
Did you ever start to wonder how you'd ever get by/ 
When the cookie jar is empty and the pie is in the sky? 
When the trickle-down is fickle...? Found a homegrown freemarket solution...
Just an old abandoned factory but the paint was bright and new/ Just an old abandoned factory/ Where you once could earn a buck/Until the firm ran out of country and the workers out of luck...
$8 bucks a month/Self Storage


It is a radical song where the singer is advocating a policy solution for the old, the sick, the poor to check into only place the free market has left priced at self-sustaining affordability: self storage for $8/month. He sings about being these folk being forced out of the middle-class; losing their jobs, houses, and future. Charlie King lyrically wrings out the economic turmoil of the late 1980's...and, my, how times have changed. Oh not the corporate greed or neoliberal globalization but the prices! My dude has been paying $60/month for the past 7 years for his self-storage.