seasons change

Remember when it was summer, and I was way too hot, and then I realized that the AC wasn't working? No, of course you don't. You don't even exist.

Well, it's now winter, and I'm way too cold, and I've come to realize that it's because the heater isn't working.

It wouldn't bug me so much, except that it's the exact same (not even six months old) unit. A big metal box on the roof that handles both AC and heat.

I don't know whether this is common or uncommon outside of the Las Vegas area...I do know that we never had AC in the house in which I grew up, and it doesn't seem like that was too uncommon at that time, in that place. Upstate New York rarely gets hot enough, for long enough, to make an AC unit anything more than a luxury item. Heaters, on the other hand, can be a life-or-death necessity there...most houses, like ours, had a big-ass furnace in the basement and little grates through which hot dry air flowed throughout the dark months of October, November, December, January, February, March...

But I digress...the main point is that the AC/heater unit isn't putting out any heat. Not really a life-threatening issue here in the Mojave desert...my thermostat is reading high 50's (that's Fahrenheit, just in case you happen to be among my multitude of international readers).

Still, it feels damn cold to me. Cold enough to have taken some goofy measures, like doing laundry for the extra heat the dryer puts out. We've lit a few fires in the fireplace...which probably puts out less heat than the dryer (it's prettier, though). I'm wearing layers and taking nighttime walks with the puppy...to keep the blood pumping, and to feel how relatively warmer it seems when I return inside.

All that loose talk about the blood thinning does have some value, I suppose. I shouldn't be blinking an eye at temperatures like these. If you can't see your breath, it's just not that cold, right?

During my two decades back east, I endured far worse...homes with little or no insulation, buffeted by nasty Canadian winds and ice storms and such. You throw on a few extra layers and keep moving or huddle up...that's just the way it is. It can actually be kinda fun...if you're not up at five in the morning on a January Monday, trying to get your car started to get to work. Or pedaling your rusty bicycle through a grey November mist of pelting little ice drops, trying to get to the minimum-wage job at K-mart that doesn't quite pay for the crappy one-room apartment and half a meal a day and the telephone that you used to call the suicide hotline because it felt like everything was all over and nothing would ever be good again.

Nope, things are better now. Now I'm in a nice little two-story house, I ate a full meal of the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers earlier, and the service techs will be coming by first thing tomorrow morning to fix the heat issue (and we won't, or shouldn't, have to pay them any money, because it was their oversight or mistake in the first place). We may not be rolling in the dough, and we may even be one major catastrophe away from not really having enough money to live on, but we're not in any real danger of being homeless yet. Sooner or later I may even have a job. I'm not about to call the suicide hotline, even though it does pretty much feel like everything is all over and nothing will be good again and the last decade or so has been a waste of time and a succession of lost love and lost hope and lost dreams. But things are better now.

They are, aren't they?