Where’d all this cold come from?

I live in Southern California. I grew up in the desert. The farthest east I’ve lived is Las Vegas. All this geography information is to let you know I have thin blood. It gets down into the 40s and I’m ready to break out the arctic wear. We finally got autumnal weather out here and I haven’t been warm since.

I guess it’s a matter of physics. Drop 85 or so pounds of insulating fat and the core is going to shiver. I’ve resorted to wearing sweatpants to bed and sleeping under three blankets. Luckily the cats cuddle next to me for added warmth. I’m wearing the same sweatpants I wore at my heaviest. The difference is that they used to fit tight and now they fit like MC Hammer parachute pants. The other night I even added a sweatshirt to the ensemble.

We do run the central heating at night, and I slept cozily last night, but woke up cold. Turns out the daughter sprayed too much air freshener early this morning, so she turned off the heater and opened all the windows to air out the place. It was freakin’ 49 degrees out! It was REALLY hard to get out of bed this morning. I snuggled next to our larger cat, Kevin, and listened to him purr while I sucked away his warmth. Once I dragged myself from my warm bed, I threw my clothes in the dryer to heat them up. Getting dressed wasn’t so bad then. I donned my newly purchased gloves and my too-big L.A. Lakers jacket and headed into the cold morning. I had a commuter mug with strong coffee in one hand and my chilled protein shake in the other. Thank God for car heaters.

As you can see, I’m a weather wimp. A creature of modern conveniences. My dad used to tell stories of growing up in Upstate New York during the Depression. No central heating, and if you left a glass of water next to your bed, it would be frozen in the morning. I guess that’s one reason that after he went out on his own, he moved as far away from the frost as possible and landed near Death Valley, where he met the woman who would become his wife and my mom.

I’ve done a lot of complaining about being cold, but given the choice between extra sweatpants and 85 pounds of fat, I’ll take the sweatpants any day.

See you tomorrow.