My part of the world, Vancouver, B.C., is full of weather wimps, and I count myself among them. We like our mild winters with occasional drizzle and no more than a 10-degree (5 degrees, if we’re talking Celsius) daily temperature fluctuation, thank you. In the summer, if the temperature rises above 80, we complain about the heat. There’s a great term used by biologists that applies to us: we’re stenothermic, able to tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures. And so, this week’s record cold in Vancouver (about 18° F for a daytime high today) is catching many of us off guard.

Earlier this week, a friend and I visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to take the “Moore Family Tour,” a guided tour of a tenement apartment that has been restored to reflect the tenancy of William and Bridget Moore and their three daughters, who lived there in 1869. The Moores had emigrated in the aftermath of the Irish Potato Famine, and arrived to encounter virulent anti-Irish sentiment, garbage-strewn streets, and loud and unsanitary living conditions.