The 9 9’s

by Rachel

Mongolians count their winter with the nine nines. These are nine groups of nine days, beginning on the winter solstice, that mark the span of winter. The third and the fourth nines are usually the coldest, but I am afraid this year breaks with tradition. We are now well into the 5th nine, and it is cold. Before, when I said I liked the cold, it wasn’t cold. Today’s temperature peaked at about -12 Fahrenheit. I saw a dog that had frozen to death, and drunk men staggering around in clothes much too thin to be of any use. They were not going to last for long unless they got inside.

You develop a crust of frost on your scarf and hat, where your body gives off moisture. The little moisture in your skin makes your glasses freeze to your nose. Your checks and the tips of your ears burn. Your eyelashes freeze together when you leave a warm place, and then your nose drips and then freezes. Your shoes feel as though they are conducting the cold right into your feet. You realize the limits of your outer-gear when your mittens just seem to stop working. You know if you are wearing a v-neck, because those 2 square inches of skin are that much colder than the rest of you. Even inside, the cold creeps from the windows and makes a two-foot cold zone along the edges of the room. The long underwear don’t come off inside, either. And you wear both the slippers and the socks.

This is amazing cold. Our thermometer at the moment (almost 8 pm) reads -23 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the BBC forecast, that will be tomorrow’s high.