Movin' on with Nellie: What? How cold is it now?

My trusty white outdoor temperature gauge from Rio Grande Savings reads minus thirty at this hour—just after 11 p.m.

I haven’t seen days, or nights, like this since I walked my dog Tiffany around the Williston (North Dakota) town houses in 1994 and the wind chill registered eighty below! I didn’t have Eskimo mukluks but I had well bundled hands and a coat with a “hoodie.”

It’s so cold that my only New Year’s Resolution is to stay warm, no matter how many blankets I have to pile on.

It’s so cold that fingers stick together especially after I have rubbed them with Zim’s Crack Crème or Gold Bond Healing Crème and then rush to lug the groceries in to find the bread ready for the freezer since they are hard as the ice in the bird bath.

It’s so cold that the Whiskas Poultry Packs for my cats has frozen and I have to unthaw them one pack at a time on the heater vent for two or three hours.

It’s so cold that the furry stuffed dog that my service dog tosses and chases is frozen to the wire fence that no longer flexes.

It’s so cold that my brain freezes without even one lick of a DQ ice cream cone.

It’s so cold that my walking stick from Taos freezes in place and won’t let go of the icy snow-bound ground.

It’s so very cold that I’m reminded of the human and canine trek in the Jack London classic: Call of the Wild.

It’s so cold that even in an insulated cup, my once freshly brewed and warm coffee changes to iced coffee.

It’s so cold that even the sky is too cold to be all the way azure. Today it looked like the big sky was shivering as it circled us in the Valley and the ice crystals latched onto wires, branches, and doggie breaths.

It’s so cold that my once feral cats do not venture out the iced over doggie door. Instead they purr, curled up next to each other and the cockers on the couch.

It’s so cold that even inside the propane heated home, socks are layered three times.

It’s so cold that short breaths and nostril hairs freeze like they do on winter’s day in Anchorage.

It’s so cold that I shiver to think about even traversing from front door to frigid vehicle.

It’s so cold that the wintering finches and sparrows are puffed up and hunkered on the lowest branches of the willow and the tumbleweeds that snuck in sometime this recent fall.

How cold will it get? Friends, it’s already minus thirty and dropping!