Cold snap

 We're experiencing a spate of cold weather here in sunny California. I realize it won't be cold by the standards of anyone existing in the more extreme latitudes, but for us, here, it's bloody cold, okay? It's in the low 30s at night and it's not topping out much higher than 55 during the day. They were threatening snow. I think I caught a glimpse of a tiny patch right up at the top of Mt. Diablo, but I could be mistaken--I was driving at the time, and the sun was coming up over the mountain, so it was a bit tricky to take a good look. It's happened before up there. In 2009 it came pretty far down the mountain, actually. That was a Big Deal at the time. That was also just a super shitty winter all around, if I remember correctly. It might have been 2010. Either way, there was snow where snow usually wasn't, and everybody freaked out. 

The next thing to say about cold weather is that I don't heat my house. I have the original in-wall electric heaters from when this place was built in 1973, and they scare the ever-loving crap out of me. I keep thinking about replacing them, but I don't use my air conditioner in the summer, either, so it always ends up being a "what's the point?" in my head, and I move on. I do have a little space heater that I use when it gets really bad. It's terrible, but it does just enough to take the chill off. I wear layers and sit under blankets and have a pair of fingerless gloves so I can still do things while being a bit less cold.

Why, yes, my electric bill is quite low. Why do you ask?

I only ever had one snow day in the history of my academic career, and it was while I was doing my Master's degree in London. The entire city shuts down over a foot of snow. I'm still baffled by it. You'd think they'd have a plan. I mean, it's not like it's unheard of to get snow in the south of England. But no, school was called off for the day, as were the trains, the Underground, and the busses. I had a snowy exploratory of Hyde Park--I lived a block away--followed by a Nutella hot chocolate in a cafe somewhere in Bayswater. It was cold. The snow was novel. 

For a day.

After that, it was just a nuisance. I don't like snow. Some people who grow up in the climate to which I am accustomed go out of their way to get to snow. Lake Tahoe isn't all that far away from the Bay Area, and I've known people to get ski passes and make the drive most weekends between November and March. I've always thought they were touched in the head, but there you go. No, I'm not a big fan of the cold, fluffy white stuff that falls from the sky. It's wet, and it makes it hard to get around, and I have no particular interest in going up and down a hill all day in a silly puffy pair of overalls.

Ice skating is fine--at least that's contained. But I'd rather a mall basement rink than an outdoor ski lodge rink, or--God forbid--an actual frozen lake any day. I did once have my very own personal ice skating rink. It would have been 1990 or '91. We had a big freeze, and a water pipe burst. The water let out onto our patio, where it froze, and for a week or so I got to go "skating" in my sneakers every day. And what self-respecting child is going to turn their nose up at that?