This time of year when — after a blizzard or two — I inevitably receive a phone call from my desert-dwelling relatives inquiring about the weather. Once I inform them of the local temperature or how much snow is on the ground, their reaction generally implies that I must travel with a team of sled dogs equipped with emergency brandy barrels and live in an igloo. I respond that – thanks to our pre-human ancestors – we have learned to harness the awesome power of fire; however freezing it may be outside, the water is still liquid in my home and the temperature quite comfortable. With the awkwardness of the conversation having reached its peak, we generally move on to how the kids are doing.

After a recent such conversation, I began thinking more about modern civilization’s ability to keep the inside at around seventy degrees no matter the conditions outside. When I say seventy degrees I’m referring to Fahrenheit, of course. With Celsius I find it’s easy to remember freezing at zero and boiling at one-hundred, but what thinking person can make sense out of anything in between? Yes, not the first time I have bashed the metric system.