The Current Climate

Our high temperature yesterday was 70 degrees. We hit 80 the day before. Our wind chill this morning was 38, with an actual temperature just over 40. The girls and I were freezing this morning as we walked to school - not least because I had them dressed in only their pajamas and bathrobes. Today was the last day of school before the winter holiday, and each class had PJ Day and watched movies all morning.

But if we struggled with the low 40s, the high temperature of 31 degrees should freeze our pants right off when we leave the airport in St. Louis on Saturday. After an estimated 22 hours of travel, our poor exhausted bodies won't know how to react to such extreme cold - 50 degrees lower than the weather here on Tuesday. At least we seem to be easing into it!

Taking only a slight tangent, the Political Climate has us worried as well. Dave will sit for the last leg of his Econ exam on January 3rd, and I feel confident that he will receive a high score. But news like this article from CareerDiplomacy.com leave us unsure about a call anytime soon. The next possible class is scheduled for the end of March, and so invitations should go out in January. This is likely early enough that new legislators will not have cut budgets or frozen hiring, so the call may be extended. Dave may just receive such a call. But enough future legislators are calling for a freeze in federal hiring that receiving that call is nerve-wracking in itself. Current diplomats share stories of the last federal hiring freeze, when a training class was canceled at the last minute. And when they last minute, they're talking the week before the class would begin. Everyone had already quit their jobs, taken their children out of school, packed their houses, canceled their leases, and begun their travel to DC when they learned they had no job after all.

Its not just the weather making me anxious these days.