I stepped out into the dark with Gandalf this morning, took a breath and my nose slammed shut.
I expected cold but not like this and nasal malfunction is a pretty reliable indicator that it’s somewhere close to zero. Gandalf thought this was *perfect* weather and he bounced off to roll in the snow. Watching him reminded me that it was a new day (with new smells!) and right now we were safe and happy and life was good. I love that dog.
There was the barest hint of light on the eastern horizon and Orion had traveled west; my constant winter companion would soon be out of sight. It gets so cold here on clear winter nights; I imagine all the frigid air of space falling on us when our cloud-quilt has been pulled back.
We set out on our walk, Gandalf padding over the frozen earth and my boots crunching the exposed ground. My headlight made the grass sparkle with frost-stars; little sisters of the celestial bodies and they twinkled delightfully with the slightest movement of my head. I actually tried to take a photo of them to show you but of course the flash went off, obliterating the tiny lights because it was dark outside. Duh. Didn’t think that one through.
The slightest wisp of my breath became instant thick fog that was illuminated by my light and made it hard to see where I was going. Just for fun, for a few breaths I huffed and puffed, surrounding my head in a glowing mist. I think I might have looked something like Madam Leota on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland; a disembodied fog bank bobbing along in the pre-dawn darkness. 
Then my lungs froze up so I had to stop.
The sky was less dark when we turned to go back home and the moon was spectacular; hanging there in all her cold glory. No warm harvest orb this dawn; she was frost princess white reflecting the snow on the mountains. After the previous photo debacle on this walk I tried again and finally got a pic that almost did the morning justice.
As beautiful as it was, the cold was too intense and I didn’t like the feeling of my eyeballs trying to freeze so we packed it up and went in. I peeled off layers of clothes and thought of ninth grade English and Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice”:
“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice….”
I checked the thermometer….yep….one below. The nose never lies.
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