Still chillin'

It is 1:30 in the afternoon and I just went to run an errand. The main reason was to get out of the house and walk around inside a large warm store to get in some steps, but there were a couple of things I wanted to pick up. I parked, as has become my custom, far from the door to the establishment. They have a ginormous parking lot and by parking some distance away, I (1) don't waste time and gas looking for an empty space near the entrance, and (2) I put in some additional walking. It is a trick I learned long ago at the time I lost a ton of weight after getting my thyroid condition treated. And, oh yeah, (3) I leave those more convenient spaces for someone who may need to be closer to the store.

And on this bright sunny day, even though I knew it was only 3 above zero outside (-16.1 C) -- I figured it was only a few additional seconds and wouldn't hurt.

My walk into the store was cold and it was breezy, but it didn't bother me much. The trip back to the car after my shopping, however, was another story. The wind was right in my face. The wind chill (as I discovered when I checked on the weather app) made it feel like -13 (-25 C) and it really did. I told Tom that by the time I reached the car, which was no further from the store than it had been when I left it behind, I felt like the villain in one of those action movies where the hero shoves the heel of his hand into the bridge of the guy's nose, pushing bits of bone back into his skull. Which is to say,  it hurt!

But no frostbite. I was probably out in that bitter blast no more than a minute and a half. When I lived in Chicago, I once got a bit of frostbite burn on my upper cheeks when I walked from the monastery to where I worked at the University of Chicago. It was only a distance of five or six blocks, but a biting wind blew in my face the whole way. I had everything covered but my eyes and that bit of cheek beneath them, and I got a noticeable burn that left faint scars for some time.

Today no scars, so how bad could it really be?

After all, we have had actual temperatures this week of -13 (-25 C) with wind chills of -33 (-36 C) -- and at least I didn't decide foolishly to go out into that!