It’s that time again when it gets ‘cold’ in the Bay Area, that being in the 50’s. Gasp! Mostly it means the return of this phenomenon called “rain”, which I think I vaguely remember from when we lived in Seattle. It’s actually quite neat to see fields of dead brown weeds suddenly spring to life again.

Unfortunately it’s also the time when my arch-enemy oxalis returns to take over every livable spot of dirt. Last year I let it get way way too long and it thickly covered huge areas of previously uninhabited dirt around our house, even killing other plants which it shielded from the sun. It wasn’t until it started invading the lawn that I declared war and spent many hours weeding it out and liberally using Roundup on the bastards. A little doesn’t work. You’ve got to soak ’em. I don’t know what those things sustain themselves on, but they sure grow quick.

So as it gets colder here, we are faced with the decision of when to turn the heat on. It’s partially a test of how much New Englander we have left in us. This is summer in New England! Then I start feeling cheap. I wonder how much money we’ll save if we leave the heat off for a couple more days. After, it becomes a contest – how long can we last? Right now we’ve resorted to dressing in layers indoors and wearing heavy sweatshirts. Thank God for the hot tub. We can get really warm, then just hop into bed.

It also seems wasteful to heat the house when we’re only here and conscious for a few hours of the day. The cat doesn’t seem to mind the cold; he’s showing off his new winter coat. I’ve set up the timer in the past so it only heats when we’re here, but it takes so long to heat, it’s hardly worth it.

Our heating ‘system’ is pretty horrible anyway. They really don’t bother to insulate houses in California. We might as well just leave the windows open and enjoy the fresh air. Our house is often the opposite of what it is outside. If it’s hot out, it’s cold inside. Later when it cools down, it’s hot inside. Now, it’s probably warmer outside than it is inside. One of the smartest investments we made this year was a pet door for the cat, so he can go out to the garage to eat and do his business without us needing to leave the door open. All the heat would just go right out the door and escape up to the attic.

Our heat comes from gas, burned from a single vent in the wall between our kitchen and hallway. It takes a couple hours to actually heat up the house and even then the bedroom at the other end is still freezing.

Again, we’ll debate about buying a space heater for the bedroom everytime we see them at Home Depot, but we’ll decline to buy it, mostly likely because Anne thinks we’ll burn the house down.

I imagine we’ll break down in a few days and see if the pilot light is still on. How many days until spring?