Sunday, January 14, 2007

Where did the day go?

I woke this morning after 11 hours of sleep. Read my book and ate breakfast. Then I took the dog for a nice walk at the Berkeley Marina. Scout is an enthusiastic walker and wants to get everywhere fast, fast, fast. But I found that she was very respectful of other people and of the dog friends she met along the way.

I dropped her off at her house and went to my house. I decided that I would take a little rest/curl under the covers to get warm. This led to the evaluation that a nap was in order. Well, 3 hours later (I didn't set the alarm quite right obviously), and my day is almost gone. I suppose I needed the rest, but still. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Let me add to P'tit Loup's response to Cody about the cold. I did grow up in Minneapolis. I've played outside on days when they told us that our spit would freeze before it hit the ground (I tried but maybe I was too short then for it to work). Cody is correct in that the cold here is nothing like the cold that we can get back in Minnesota. Indeed, it often does not get as hot here in the summer.

The Bay Area temperatures, at least in Oakland, tend to fall rather nicely into about a 20-30 range throughout the year. Most people expect this, including those fine people who built most of the housing around here. SS' apartment is a fine example. She has a lovely studio with a full glass window stretching across one wall. Where did they put the heater, one might ask? Why right underneath the window of course. Or in my apartment where the single paned windows which crank open for coolness during the summer do not shut fully in the kitchen.

And why, the builders must have asked themselves, in such a temperate clime, should we insulate these buildings? Just a waste of money. And heaters...A, the owner of Scout and kitty, has left me a note asking me not to run the two "furnaces" at the same time. I keep wanting to cross out that word and call them the heaters they are...a furnace implies something large which heats from below. Wall heaters are definitely not that. Before Hippy Chick and Bee Dragon moved into their house, they had to install a heating system. The house was not built with one.

So it is one thing to live in Minnesota, where in the coldest of weather you can sprint from one overly heated building to another, and the cars are now being sold with butt warmers. It's another to have it be cold in the Bay Area where you move from one inadequately heated building to another, finding the warmest place to be is sitting in your car.

Okay, rant done. Hey, maybe my body was trying to make sense of all the cold and decided that the best bet for me was hibernation!

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