It’s tough toughing out California winters
It’s winter, it’s cold, and I’m feeling guilty.
There are ways to get warm, but most of them involve injuring
the environment.
And this could lead to
– ironically – global warming.
It’s tough toughing out California winters
It’s winter, it’s cold, and I’m feeling guilty.
There are ways to get warm, but most of them involve injuring the environment.
And this could lead to – ironically – global warming.
The weather has become the topic of choice with the neighbors, at the grocery store, during school meetings, as we shiver in our parkas. Everyone’s complaining about it (like that’s going to do any good). Plants are wilting in our yards, confused by the summer-like temps of a few weeks ago giving way to wintry blasts.
I knew it was cold when I got up this morning, but it didn’t really hit me until I dropped Hunter, the 15-year-old, off at school. Then I noticed that the tops of the mountains near Salinas are white. As in snow.
That’s how cold it’s been.
I fully acknowledge that I am a wimp when it comes to cold. That’s what comes from living one’s whole life in California. That’s why I currently do not reside in Nova Scotia or North Dakota. If you live there, you are tougher than me, no doubt about it.
At any rate, I have plenty to complain about besides dead plants. The price of heating the house, for one.
I live in an all-electric house, which has its good points, but also has one disadvantage: It’s expensive when you’re talking about heating anything. So I’ve been building fires in the fireplace to keep warm and am trying not to run the electric furnace.
And then I found out I shouldn’t be doing that.
Ross, the 18-year-old, is an Al Gore in training. He’s keeping me up-to-date on how much carbon our family is putting into the atmosphere. It’s kind of scary.
Electricity? Kind of okay. Fires in the fireplace? Bad. Very bad. Not to mention the whole air quality issue.
And let’s not even mention the driving. That, of course, could be another way to warm up, by driving around and running the heater in the car.
But apparently that’s the worst.
There’s a Web site, www.climatecrisis.com, where you plug in numbers about your driving habits, electricity use and other factors. Then it tells you how bad you’re being – i.e., how much carbon you’re producing.
I’m ashamed to say my family is above the national average.
So I can’t build fires, I can’t run the heater, and I can’t drive around in the car to warm up. Expense and environmental guilt have decimated my options.
And of course, I am the only one in the house who cares.
Being surrounded by men as I am – men who do not ever seem to get chilled – I get no sympathy at all. “Put on a sweater,” they tell me. I’m already wearing three sweaters and my fake Ugg boots and am swaddled in a big blanket.
Also, if they were to turn on the heat, they wouldn’t feel guilty about it.
Daytimes are not so bad, especially if I can find a little patch of sunlight to be in, or if I can go for a brisk walk (bundled up, of course). But nights are really tough when it’s cold.
I have been wearing my thickest, most grandma-like pajamas, and piling three blankets on the bed.
Where’s a good hot flash when you need one?
