The Subzero Report
By: Laura Buchholz
Tags: Cold, Masks, Wisconsin, Winter

Oh my god

It is with a certain amount of glee that I report that our local sheriff has declined to “investigate” the city council and the county board for passing a local mask mandate that would go into effect should the state one get knocked down by Republicans. You can read about it here. You can also read about it in more depth here. I like the first link because of the headline: “Eau Claire County sheriff says he won’t investigate city council, county board despite 100+ email concerns,” as though volume of emails alone might constitute a valid reason to investigate anything. So my hero of the day is Sheriff Ron Cramer, who honestly I had never heard of until this morning.

“That’s why elections are important, and we need to trust the people we vote into our local offices.” — Sheriff Ron Cramer

To quote Donald Trump Jr., “I love it.”

Stupidity endures

This is not to say that stupidity has gone away locally or at the state level. Our Republican legislature has made it their life mission to endanger the lives of all Wisconsonites while wasting everyone’s time, and so yes, they will certainly continue to try to strike down any mask mandate that our governor issues as part of an emergency order. So look forward to that. Locally, our university students are back, and certainly gathering at The Pickle again to jump-start local transmission of the new variants. So I guess it’s good that it’s 8 below zero with a windchill of minus 18 all week long. Nobody is really tempted to go out right now, save for those people who still go running and biking so they can post it on social media like it’s no big deal. I’m not saying I want those ice athletes to get COVID-19 from jogging on Water Street, but if those posts went away for 10 to 14 days, I wouldn’t really mind either.

Mom gets vaccinated

In other news, my mom has received her first shot (Moderna), and will go in for the second in March. YES. It was a bit of a ragefest figuring out why she hadn’t received her promised email while my younger aunt and uncle were posting merrily about having received theirs. I won’t even get into it because everyone knows what a shitshow this vaccine rollout has been. If you’ve ever spent any time resetting passwords for your parents, then you understand how adding the element of life or death really raises the stakes when requiring seniors to navgiate the dreaded “patient online portal.” I hate phones, but even I can see the value in sucking it up and calling seniors at this point. In Wisconsin, you could probably just load up a wagon and walk from house to house at this point, as it seem cold enough to keep those doses fresh.

Podcast and ice lanterns

My intrepid cousin introduced me to The Osterholm Update, which is a terrific podcast if you’re like me and you enjoy smart people giving you the smart facts about the coming disaster of positive cases. I’ve also started making ice lanterns, because as long as it’s negative 500 degrees, might as well do something interesting with that. I have a big yard, and the goal is to line the whole thing by Valentine’s Day, at which point I’ll light them for one night with red candles. I would light them more often but I’d have to start a GoFundMe for a candle budget. Tea lights are cheap though. I don’t know, we’ll see.

Book report

And finally, I’ve started reading again, which feels like a victory. I am reading this book called ‘Wintering’ by Katherine May. It’s supposed to be about how rest and retreat is good and natural, but I’m currently on this long chapter about going to Stonehenge, and it’s like, what? She lives in England but spent the whole first section of the book in Scandanavia, and I’m thinking oh no, is this another ‘Eat Pray Love,’ where you have to travel to a bunch of different countries to find inner peace? Because I’m not going anywhere, except maybe to the basement once in a while to get more wood.

Okay people, go forth and have your days. I will talk to you later.