The Wander Stones, 23rd Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Still cold. The low temperature last night (28° F) was 16 degrees below normal. That's only four degrees above the record low set in 1913. I moved to Atlanta in 1981 and never once saw it get this cold in November - these are January-February temperatures.

Deneb is a walking day and despite the temperatures I got my steps in. I wound up settling for a 4.8-mile Madison not so much because I couldn't stand the cold but because I felt stiff and achy, possibly due to the temperature or possibly because of Sunday's 10.3-mile Polk. In either event, I decided not to push it and took a shortcut back home earlier than usual.

Reminder that ever since seeing someone suggest walking 39 miles in the month of December as a tribute to Jimmy Carter, our 39th president, I've been naming my alternating-day walks after presidents. A one-mile walk would be a Washington, a three-mile walk a Jefferson, and so on. My record so far is a 12.1-mile Taylor, and my goal is to someday complete a Lincoln. My usual distance ranges from a Jackson to a Tyler.

Meanwhile, the world continues its descent into hell. The government shutdown is ending, but the Stable Genius still wants to deny SNAP benefits to hungry Americans. ICE agents in Illinois pepper-sprayed a couple and their one-year-old child, and California police had to intervene when a plain-clothed ICE agent pointed a gun at a woman. The Navy is sending an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean as tensions escalate with Venezuela, and the Stable Genius wants to permit oil and gas drilling off the California coast (the same man who said offshore wind farms were eyesores is apparently fine with offshore oil derricks). He's also trying to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

Meanwhile, the Epstein files still haven't been released.