Hibernation

I promise I haven't gone into hibernation - but the idea is not far off. Le Grand Froid (The Big Cold!!) has hit France and it is FREEEEEEEZING.

All I want to do is throw fifteen blankets on top of myself and lie in bed all day.

Copain and I have had to s'équiper (equipe ourselves!) for an honest to goodness winter. Un vrai hiver...

Clément the Casque now goes over a tight-weave beanie for my ice cube ears, and I have to literally wrap a scarf around my face and tuck it under my glasses to make the Velib ride to work everyday - lest I risk losing my nose.  I move my face around like a clown warming up for a performance as I ride up boulevard Beaumarchais - just trying to keep some blood flow to my face.

It's that cold, people. Like really, really cold.

The worst part of the Velib ride through the Parisian Arctic is trying to keep feeling in my fingers.  Yesterday, I tried wearing two pairs of gloves, but it just made the situation worse and stopped feeling even faster than roughing it with one pair. I had to pull over and quickly remove the second pair in the hopes that a tiny bit of feeling would come back for the rest of the ride. As I stare longingly at the français in their heated voitures, I shake my arms and hands like a crazy lady at stop lights, in an attempt to keep from freezing. 

Knowing that her son has a thing against heater-usage, Belle-Mère intervened and bought us an economical space heater, right before Le Grand Froid hit. Behold, my savoir:

I was slightly against the idea when she first offered an intervention due to our extreme lack of space in our tiny Parisian apartment. However, our heater is teeny-tiny also, perfect for heating our teeny-tiny living room.  It helps me defrost and prevents me from having to wear gloves inside the house. Merci Belle-Mère!

In addition to the heater, we've also changed our sleeping situation - we now have one down comforter, one throw and one thermal blanket on our bed.  Despite our massive blanket attack, somehow I was still able to sleep with my robe on last night. Surely she jests, you may be thinking. Non, non mes amis, I jest not.

The big player to blame in this whole freezing inside the house business is our very poorly insulated set of windows from the 19th century (or 1950, whatever). Any heat that we may bring in, is slowly but surely let out through the cracks and crannies for which our windows are so famous. Yes, yes, I've tried everything, including tape-on insulation, but when our windows sealed shut from water-log after our big dégâts des eaux, the amazing insulation came off in the repairs (repairs = sanding down the windows so they open again...). Ah, la vie in a Parisian apartment!

This cold is also affecting our social life - instead of going out to dinner last night, Copain insisted that we sit on the couch with a blanket, dinner and the wildly intellectual Jersey Shore. My brain is surely disintegrating at a alarming rate (but perhaps it will be well-preserved with the cold??).

To add insult to injury, they say that it may snow this weekend. Thankfully, the Parisians have gone against their natural tendency to wait for the merde to hit before finding a solution (let's think back to Christmas 2010 and all the flights that couldn't take off due to snow!) and have salted the streets in anticipation of la neige. Bien joué les gars!

Perhaps all this cold will lead to more blogging, which I have been sadly so bad at these past two weeks when life just seemed to keep getting in the way...

A suivre....