Brain Freeze

So I've had my first 'wind brain freeze'! As I'm sure most people have experienced, when you drink an icy cold drink too quickly you get a sudden 'brain freeze'. Well, this is the exact same feeling but from simply walking in the wind. You're walking along and the wind hitting your forehead causes a sudden painful 'brain freeze'! Now I guess this is what would be expected when the temperature outside is -39C and with the wind it feels like -54C!!! The arctic wind brain freeze..lol.

My colleague from work all bundled up on her way home for lunch

I had another first today, as well. I get into the office and start to warm up and then I receive a phone call. It is my colleague from work and she is trapped inside her house! Very similar to the phrase 'I've fallen and I can't get up.." well this is the arctic "I'm stuck and I can't get out.."!! So I reassure her and tell her I'm on my way and start to run through some of the possibilities of why her door might be blocked (e.g., snow blown up against the door, ice in the doorframe, lock frozen, etc) and I start collecting shovel, ice scraper, lock deicer to see which item will do the trick. I get to her house and I can see her from the window trying to push the door open from the inside with no luck. The door doesn't have snow blown up against it keeping it from opening, so must be frozen shut. Yes- doors here can FREEZE shut so that you're unable to open them! Apparently a hair dryer serves the double purpose of thawing your door frame so you can get out of your house!! Good thing I finally decided to invest in a hair dryer after 30 years (figured natural hair drying wasn't such a good thing in the frozen arctic..lol). So, knowing that the door was likely frozen shut the only option was to try and push it in from outside and I proceed to throw myself against the door and with a sudden bang, the door jerks open and I see a very greatful colleague. The doorframe was covered in ice and the door had simply frozen over. To the point that we were unable to close the door again as there was too much ice in the doorframe, so we had to leave her house with the door slightly ajar!  Randall became quite the master at manually 'de-icing' the doorframe with his 'ice machete' (i.e., a long flat kitchen knife) when we were having problems with the door freezing over. 

Ice that built up in the doorframe overnight

Randall chipping away the ice in the doorframe