Fine Winter Days

A friend of mine has, within the last year, moved to a warm climate. It's such a very warm climate that, frankly, I feel sorry for her. This weekend, an arctic blast will sweep in from where ever arctic blasts come from. The temperature will be in the negative double digits, and whoo-baby! That wind chill will freeze your fillings, so keep yer yap shut.

So why, oh why do I "feel sorry" for my friend of the temperate climate? Because I'll just bet she's forgotten the intimacy one can have with one's windshield, of course.

Explain? Oh, dear reader, are you not from these parts? Well, let me tell you about car windshields and early morning frost.

There are different kinds of windshield frost, you know. There's the thick kind that's not terribly cold and doesn't stick to the windshield too hard. This kind of frost is easy to scrape off; it's almost fun. There's the frost that's stunningly beautiful with intricate snowflake-like images, jagged lightning-like shards, and delicate lacey window trim. I had that kind of frost to scrape about two weeks ago. I stood there staring at the beautiful patterns, my ice scraper in mid-air, not wanting to remove the artwork.

I've seen lots of other kinds of frost, but the frost that was GLUED to my windshield this morning is the most irritating kind to have. It's the kind that's thin, very cold, and stuck tight. I had to take my brass windshield scraper and try to get the "just right" angle to get this crap off. If I get the angle wrong, the scraper goes veering off across the windshield (with NO frost removal), or else I get this spine-yanking screech of metal against my windshield. Ack.

But when I get the angle right and the frost starts coming off--slowly--the act of scraping the windshield can become meditative. There's the idea of making slow progress. Yes, that can be oddly satisfying if I'm not freezing my ass off. But the other thing I've noticed when the frost is stuck that tight is the curve of my windshield. Huh. I'd never noticed that before. Now I know just where the glass is perfectly flat and the exact spot it begins its gradual curve toward the roofline.

I'll bet no one who "enjoys" 60 degree winters ever gets that intimate with a windshield.