I am cold. Not chilly. Not feeling-the-effects-of-a-brisk-day. Cold. Freezing. Nose, fingers, even the toes that are snuggled inside the fuzzy socks inside my houseshoes. Cold.

I couldn’t sleep the last two nights because my nose was so cold. I tried putting my head under the blanket, but I have this irrational fear (yeah…as if I have only one…) of suffocating. I know they say we have a built-in oxygen sensor, kind of like a car (note to self: need to take the Suburban in to get the “check engine soon” light checked out…), but I don’t trust my autonomic nervous system all that much.

Global warming my…foot. And don’t give me that “global warming causes freezing” spiel. Once upon a time, the majority of the earth’s water was frozen. The Native Americans walked here from far Eastern Asia—right across the Bering Strait, which at that time was the Bering Land Bridge on account of all the water was in the form of icebergs and expanded frozen polar regions. And then one day, a Mommy Nomad (a Mommad?) called out “If you kids don’t quit playing in that water right now….” and someone realized they’d better hurry that caravan along. Good thing, too, because all that ice melted and swallowed the Bering Land Bridge right up. What melted all that ice? The globe got warmer. Which—and I’m just throwin’ this out, now—sounds an awful lot like Global Warming. Thousands of years before Chevy introduced the Suburban.

Even my suburban is cold....

Global warming sounds pretty good to me right now. North Texas has had nighttime temps below freezing for the past two weeks. A Saskatchewan Screamer (yep, our weatherman’s a funny guy…) is due to hit any minute now, sinking us into the teens with windchills near O (farenheit) for the next few days.

This is Texas, for cryin’ in a bucket. Our weather-related motto (doesn’t your state have one?) is “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few hours.” Sure, we get cold in the winter. Intermittently. Mostly a combination of chilly and not-so-chilly, punctuated by brief bursts of cold as well as blissful patches of look-at-me-I’m-wearing-a-tank-top-and-capris-in-February.

One day a few winters ago, we’d been in the 50s with rain all day. Then suddenly a cold front blew through and took us down to 19 degrees in a matter of hours. We were fairly new horse-owners at the time, and it took a while for us to realize we should probably go check on Mr. H.  He was a horse-sicle. His mane and tail were coated with ice, and he was shivering all over. 1100 pounds of shivering horseflesh is something to see.

We evicted the Suburban from the garage to accomodate him and took turns holding his lead rope and keeping him calm. The Hubby set up the heat lamps (at a safe distance) and Ri and a friend rotated towels and blankets in and out of the dryer. After a couple of hours he was dry & warm enough that we could put his horsey-coat on him and put him back out in the pasture. The next day I think it got up to 50 again.

That’s Texas for ya’.

As long as there's snow, then it's all worthwhile I guess....

But this winter has been brutal. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that I hadn’t fully recovered from all those consecutive days of 100+ temps and no rain all summer. It’s cosmically unjust to have to shell out $300+ a month for A/C and then turn around and pay to have the 500 gallon propane tank filled 3 times during the winter.

No, something’s wrong here. Somebody messed with Texas.

Last night, as I lay shivering in my bed, teeth chattering, alternating between putting my face under the blanket to keep my nose warm and pulling it back out again to escape certain death by CO2, a thought occured to me: Aliens.

What if the aliens used their uber-sci-fi technology to transport us to some freakishly cold planet as part of some collosal experiment? And what do they plan to do with us after they finish their little mind game, huh? Is that when all the bright lights and the drills and the alien probes come in? I don’t want to be dissected. I don’t want them implanting their little microchips in the back of my neck like they did to Scully. And I sure as heck don’t want to be probed.

Unless it’s a heated probe….

Tags: A/C, alien abduction, aliens, Bering Land Bridge, cold, cold front, cold nose, freezing, global warming, Ice Age, Mr. H, oxygen sensor, propane, Texas, Texas summer, weather

As I type this, it is 20 degrees outside. Farenheit, for my readers across the pond. In Texas. And the wind chill is 11. I have friends and relatives in New England and the Great White North who think that sounds balmy right now, but I will happily remind them that not only will I be shelling out a couple grand to the propane company this winter, but come the long Texas summertime, I’ll be forkin’ over the $$$ to keep my house cool-ish (cool-esque?) when it’s 108 outside. Maybe “happily remind” was a poor word choice….

Anyway, it’s cold. And the one thing that makes winter weather salvageable is curling up on the couch in front of the fireplace. Only I don’t have a fireplace. Well, I do have a fireplace, but it doesn’t work.

See, the day my fireplace was installed, I mentioned that I didn’t feel a whole lotta heat being generated. The guy what did the installing said, “Oh, this unit’s more for yer atmosphere than fer actually heatin’ yer house.” Really? I paid you $1,800 to give my living rooom atmosphere? Because I distinctly remember looking the sales rep in the eye and forming the words “I want a fireplace that can heat my house if the heating goes out.”  Was I too vague about my sole criterion?

I should have had my builder tell the guy to rip it out and bring me a new one, and truth be told, the words “rip” and “new one” were definitely at the top of my mind, just not relating to the fireplace….

Okay, I have a great imagination. Barring the heater actually going out, I can still sit on my couch with a cup of tea in front of a fireplace and pretend it’s actually generating heat. And I did. For about 3 weeks, at which point we ran out of propane. 500-gallon propane tank, empty. The verynice propane guy actually came out to investigate (“We’ve never had anyone go through 500 gallons of propane in 3 weeks before. 500 gallons of propane should last more than 3 months.”) and discovered that our “atmosphere” sucked down propane like a frat boy at a keg party. I mean, like a frat boy sucks down beer, not propane. Anyway….

Truth be told, the fireplace is only one of many sob stories. There’s also the garage door opener that won’t close when the temperature dips below 40 degrees or when it’s too sunny. And the top-of-the-line 72-gallon air-jet bathtub that the electricians burned out when they accidentally hooked my house up to 220 instead of 110. And the pricey paint that promised to make my hardy-plank look like beautiful stained cedar, only The Hubby couldn’t convince the painters to follow the directions, despite the fact that he implored them in both fluent Spanish and English. And don’t forget the fact that the breaker to the master bedroom trips every time it thunders.

Face it, our builder dropped a few balls. Nice person—well intentioned, and I guess I have to admit that most of the important stuff turned out all right. But every time I break a nail prying open a knobless linen closet door, or I absent-mindedly flip on a switch that’s not hooked up to anything, I curse my builder beneath my breath.

Yes, our builder was a certifiable crazy-woman. I’m just glad The Hubby didn’t divorce her….

to be continued…. possibly….

Tags: builder, cold, fireplace, propane, winter