Everything is frozen.

I'm starting to think that Wisconsin isn't playing around. The lake finally froze. I say finally because December and early January were unseasonably warm, so the freezing process was late in the year (avg. freeze date Dec. 20), not because it took a long time. Once it got going, it only took about 4 days. That's fast. And it's a big lake (almost 10,000 acres). Big up to Wikipedia for the factoids. One morning in December I rode past the lake on the bus and saw this low layer of mist rising up from the middle of the lake and rolling quickly out to the shores in waves. Two different people told me it was the lake "giving up its heat." The next day it was partially frozen. I imagine, if not for the following warm spell, it would have gone through that whole process in a couple of days. Like a big yawn and then it closes its mouth. But it took a month-long hiatus and was nice enough to wait for my return to this tundra wasteland.

Which brings me to the 10-day forecast. The average high over the next ten days is 18; the average low is 4. (This blog entry is full of data; it's so official-like.) There's a light snowfall every couple of days. The big snow from last week is still here. Everywhere. Deep. I've never lived someplace where it snows and then the snow... doesn't melt. It hasn't been above freezing in weeks. It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. I feel like I live inside of a giant freezer. You know that lumpy, white build-up of ice you get inside of freezers? That's what Wisconsin looks like right now.

Erinn's 25th birthday was Thursday, and I made a lot of fun of her for being old, rounding up to 30, being a quarter-century...however you want to look at it, she's ancient. To celebrate the occasion, we went bowling, ate cake, and almost died. That's right. Kevin almost got us hit by a train. I'm not talking about cutting across the tracks a few seconds before the barrier goes down, while the train is still a ways off. I'm talking about not realizing we were sitting in the middle of an intersection through which a train passes and trying to figure out which way to turn. He chose a right turn (thanks to the urging of our own Backseat Angry Dad, Eric) and four seconds later, in the rear-view, a thundering train passed a few feet from the spot we had just been occupying. A left turn would ACTUALLY HAVE KILLED US. But my point here is not that this was Kevin's fault. For all that Eric and Andy maintain there was ample warning, I only heard bells. Which are loud and can be heard from some ways off an actual train crossing. It was dark. I never saw tracks. If you're not familiar with the local streets, what's to tell you that the train is coming through your intersection and is about to murder you? Where's the little white mechanical barrier, Wisconsin? They're not expensive, and you know what? I OBEY THEM. Happy birthday, Erinn. I hope you like the near-death experience we got you. You can't exchange it.