Last week, La Pine experienced 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought that was pretty cold.

Silly me.

As I get up this morning and glance at the thermometer, I do a double-take and end up staring at the meter for longer than I ever have. It showed MINUS 6.

That's Fahrenheit however. It doesn't sound too bad, really. But if you convert that to Celsius, that's 22 freaking degrees below freezing. Now that's cold.

And here comes my issue with Fahrenheit vs Celsius. Really, Dear Americans, what the f**k were you thinking when you implemented this hair-brained measure of Fahrenheit? Did you know that the majority of the rest of the world uses Celsius as a measure for hot and cold? Ever wonder why? That's right. Cause Celsius actually quite accurately describes the temperature state of the environment at any given moment.

Water freezes at 0 degrees (Celsius). At that point it turns to ice - making your life usually a whole lot more miserable, unless you're a hockey player, an ice skater or into luge, of course. So, hmmm, why would you want to attach the number 32 to that? What does 32 have to do with the water freezing?

Oh, I get it. It's a challenge. Kinda like the whole ounces, pound, quart, pint, inches and feet thing, eh? Is it really that unreasonable to ask that those units of measurement make sense to the mere mortal?

So anyway. On top of the cold, the power went out at 6am and stayed off until 8.30am. I lit candles, made a fire in my wood-burning stove, popped a kettle on it, and voila, 10 minutes later I had a steaming cup of Chai.

That sort of made it all better, but I'm still a little disturbed about the whole Fahrenheit thing.