Minnesota native moves home, lives in constant fear of frostbite

I'm kind of embarrassed by how wussy I've become in the frostbitten face of northern Minnesota weather. I mean, I grew up here. I spent many a wickedly cold morning walking 20 minutes to and from my high school (uphill both ways--seriously) because my Arizona-native mother declined to drive us. She never got a ride from her parents to school, so we were supposed to tough it out just like she did in that bitter 70-degree winter weather.

One would think that had imbued me with an impenetrable toughness that would stick to me like steel armor on moist skin in below-zero weather, regardless if I moved elsewhere for a spell. One would think wrong.

I've grown soft in the four years in college I spent enjoying the balmy Minneapolis weather. And a summer spent in San Diego and a fall in Washington, D.C. has made me a veritable pile of goo. I've been back in this frozen hinterland for a week and change now, and I'm suffering, I tell you. Did I mention the temperature when I left D.C. was 60 degrees, and I had been walking around all that week sans coat?

Instead of frolicking around our Nation's Capital wearing skirts and nothing heavier than a jean jacket, I'm now bundling up extensively for my stiff two block walk from parking lot to office and muttering expletives all the way.

I guess I chose the wrong week to climb back into that armor.