In terms of appliances

If San Francisco is known as the air-conditioned city, then Seattle is the city that climbed into the refrigerator and closed the door. It's still cold here, especially in the shade of the downtown buildings the closer I get to Elliott Bay. I imagine this might be what it feels like to walk in the radiant chill next to a glacier's icy bulk. The numbers on the thermometer don't explain it — the highs have been in the fifties, the lows in the forties. By those numbers, it's really not that cold. I think the numbers that explain it best are the ones on the calendar: 5 and 1. It's the first of May, and I am still wearing my winter coat, wool hat, scarf, and gloves. (My coat needs cleaning, but I don't think there will be three days when I won't need it.) Feeling cool to cold most of the year is nothing new to me, coming from San Francisco. But feeling this cold? This late? Seattle, is this really necessary?