Jan 29 2002
Snow Days
Wondering where I’ve been the past few days? Taking snow days, is where. It’s been cold enough to snow in the Bay Area for the first time since 1976, that long-ago Bicentennial year that I am, sadly, old enough to remember (but I didn’t live in San Francisco then — I lived in upstate New York, where they invented snow). As I write, it’s 47 degrees outside (or 8 degrees, if you live in one of those unfortunate Metric or even worse, semi-Metric places), which is our normal low in the darkest hours of the night this time of year, not the high temperature on a bright, sunny January day, which should be around 60 (aka 15) degrees or maybe a little below.
Now I do realize that those of you who live where there is real weather are now laughing and thinking, “Well, if it was 47 degrees here, I’d be thrilled. That girl would complain if she ever did win the lottery”, both of which are probably completely true statements. However, when you live where there is routinely real weather, you have houses that are actually insulated, actually heated, and have consistent power to run the heating with.
Our building is apparently not insulated, and is equipped with baseboard electric heaters in the bedroom and the living room. I don’t know if you have ever personally experienced these wonders of electricity, but if not, here’s what they do:
1. Make everything smell like hot dust.
2. Run up your PG&E bill to epic proportions in no time at all.
3. Produce little or no heat.
So basically, we just complain, put on another sweater, and cover ourselves with warm, purring, fuzzy cats.
One Response to “Snow Days”
Oh ick. I always forget about the insulation thing. So good comeback! That would suck.