In the strangest of places

Full list of January questions can be found here.

6. In 1709 The Great Frost began during the night, a sudden cold snap that remains Europe's coldest ever winter. What temperature will it reach today where you live?

Today's high is supposed to be 43F with rain increasing until a peak at 11pm. So, basically more rain all day.

7. In 1803, Henri Herz, an Austrian pianist and composer, was born in Vienna, Austria. Have you ever learned the piano? If not, would you like to?

I never learned an instrument. I asked for and got a guitar when I was a kid and the instructor never showed up for my first lesson. I think I managed to get one lesson in after that, but I never really pursued it. I'm not really interested in playing any instrument.

8. Do you look back on your school days with fondness? What was your favourite subject to learn?

I really didn't enjoy being in school and that includes college. My favorite subject was German, though, and I took four years of it. It was my last two years of high school and my first two in college and I originally set out to be a German major. I realized I didn't want to teach or translate for a living, so I changed my major to Journalism and Mass Communication with an emphasis in Advertising. I also changed my minor from Geology to Sociology because I absolutely hated how much of Geology was chronological memorization.

9. What time do you usually get up and go to bed each day?

My alarm is set for 4am on weekdays but I almost never make it all the way to it. I'm thankful for that because waking up via alarm is jarring, no matter how gentle the alarm tone is. Today I woke up at 3:59! Which isn't to say I slept all the way through or generally do. I get sore and flip from one side to the other or to my back. I run to the bathroom. Sometimes, like last night, I revert a bit to our natural biphasic sleep cycle and watch some TV. I love those nights because the second phase of sleep is always so refreshing.

Our living room lights come on at 3:45am and the light coming under my door is a great way to tell whenever I wake up if I should check my phone for the time and possibly get up.

Bedtime of course varies a bit but I'd say 7pm is a pretty typical time to climb into bed and watch a show before going to sleep. I used to typically sleep seven hours a night but it's been eight for a while. I don't know if that's age or perhaps recovery from teaching water fitness classes.

10. Are you impulsive, or do you take time to make decisions?

I bet people look at my eclectic collection of tattoos and think I'm impulsive but the truth is that most of them came off a list I keep in a spreadsheet. One time when I went in for a consultation about what to do with my left wrist or hand and possibly extend the sleeve into an optical illusion, Jimmy and I couldn't see eye to eye on any of my ideas, so I dipped into my spreadsheet and ended up choosing the thing I wanted to be my very first tattoo, back before I had any. So, it was 30 or so years, quite a bit of time to make that decision.