Wednesday 21 January 2004

Pic of the day: View through my window on a snowy day.

Cold days

While the royal family gets around to having an heir (more about that another day, God willing), my own life is somewhat more prosaic. For a while now, the temperature outside has hovered around the freezing point. Sometimes a little snow falls, mostly it is a wet slush. Some days are much colder, but luckily very little snow has fallen even so. I hate having to shovel snow, of course, and there is also the question of whether I should shovel snow for the elderly couple upstairs (or they for me). So each day without deep snow is a good thing.

The cold, however, eventually seep into the rooms. The floor grows cold unless I turn up the electric heating cables. They are usually at the lowest level of heating, 1 out of 3, in the winter (and nothing in the summer half of the year). The place is very well insulated, but eventually even triple insulated glass and foam-filled walls cannot keep the heat in. Somehow it seems the cold travels through the ground itself, chilling the floor. I have an electric "baseboard heater" with a thermostat. But on days like these, the room still grows slowly colder. And I let it, as long as it does not go too far.

It is not that I cannot afford the heating. But a little bit of chill doesn't hurt. The body will adapt by turning up the metabolism. Burning more sugar and fat, that is. I notice this each spring, it feels a lot warmer than when it was the same temperature in the fall. And then comes the summer when I groan in the heat. No, I am not going to turn up the heat until the candles look like they need Viagra. It is OK to know what season it is. As long as it doesn't hurt, or distract me from all the fun things I like to do.

I am repeatedly tempted to pull out the Recluce books from my travel bag where I read them each workday on the commute. But I usually end up playing DAoC or Civ3 or The Sims, or watching anime. And eating bread with plant margarine and jam, and cheese if there is any in the house. Cheese and chocolate suffer the same fate: They are nibbled to death. I don't have meals on them, and they can last for days, but each day they are a bit more nibbled until there is nothing left. No wonder I manage to keep my weight despite the increased power consumption for making my own heat. Then again, my weight is just barely above what is good and right. I have to remember to get those blood sugar tests taken some day soon, but I don't think there is a problem. But not today. Someday. What do you mean, there's not a weekday called Someday? There should be. And it should be in addition to all the other days, so I could do all the stuff I never get done. I'll do it all on Someday!