We've just endured back to back nights of zero and one degree below Farenheit. While those aren't extreme temperatures for some places, they are too cold for me.

I've never got along with cold. Maybe it's because I'm skinny. I have no insulation. You've heard the expression chilled to the bone? Well the cold doesn't have very far to go to get to my bones.

When I was a kid I only enjoyed winter in short spurts. Building a snowman in the yard was fun because I could race inside and warm up immediately afterwards.

Ice skating, on the other hand, was torture because the pond where we usually skated wasn't near enough to the house for me to periodically thaw out. I could skate, if you define skating as being able to stay on your feet for ten seconds at a time. Unfortunately I couldn't feel my feet for much more than ten seconds. As soon as I stepped onto the ice the cold climbed straight up into the metal blades of the skates and through the leather soles right into my flesh. And then my feet vanished, replaced by a vaguely swollen nothingness.

My fingers disappeared, for all intents and purposes, soon after my feet did. It's no ball trying to glide around the ice without feet, or to break your inevitable fall without hands. Once I went down a few times I lost my knees too.

Then the wind started to gust. It's always windy in the middle of a frozen pond. And that was the end of my ears, no matter the muffs and woolen cap and hood. Oddly, I felt my ears burn before they froze off. They left in their place a throbbing headache. After that my nose started running, even though it didn't seem to be on my face any longer. I'd try to wipe my non-existant nose with a phantom hand. Naturally I'd miss, and there went my cheeks.

Once I was back home, in the warmth, all my missing body parts were gradually reattached, sewn back on, or so it felt, by thousands of stabbing needles of pain.

These days I avoid winter sports. When it gets cold I stay inside and turn up the thermostat. I no longer lose extremities but the propane bills make dollars vanish from our checking account so winter is still not entirely painless.