After a pretty mild kick-off to winter, weather-wise, January and February in Wisconsin got real. Snow fell, and now we’re at Day 10 or so of a polar vortex when the jet stream sags and Arctic air masses send our temperatures below zero.
Result: in addition to being activity-restricted due to Covid-19, we’re spending more time inside than is probably good for our mental health.
So how has my neighborhood in Metro Milwaukee, along with bunches of others in Wisconsin, reacted? By dipping our jeans in water, putting them outdoors to freeze, and forming them into shapes to stand up in our yards. News articles that ran in papers across the state spurred on this practice; about a third of the houses on my street are sporting this denim yard art.
Has the stress of the pandemic, upending so much of what we’ve relied on as “normal,” pushed your thinking or your team’s practices into the absurd?
It’s probably justified to have some strong or seemingly irrational reactions in this environment. Take a day or two off and give that pasta maker a try, or get out the snowshoes and walk out in the open until you’re exhausted enough to just sit, or maybe soak a pair of jeans and get them to stand up out in the snow.
Spring’s coming. But until it does, those frozen jeans might just get us through.
