Who Turned The Heater On?

What a rough weekend to be a southern Californian. Sure we have a lot of nice days and beautiful weather virtually year round. Sure we can wear shorts and tank tops (at least the men can) to Christmas dinner when the rest of the country is wearing jackets, scarves and mittens, but the last two days we’ve paid the price for it.

By paying the price I mean the $500 extra our electricity bills will be this month because it’s been so hot. You might think that 93 degrees isn’t too bad, but that was at 10:30 last night!! It was at least 112 degrees at one point yesterday. While I was outside during the afternoon I could have sworn I heard my air conditioner whisper “save me.” It got so hot that state officials actually asked people to stop thinking at one point because of the energy it produces. Seriously, to emphasize that point, I noticed while driving on 3 of our freeways today that the big message boards were displaying reminders to conserve energy. With the power I imagine it takes to run those things, it was probably a pretty costly reminder, if not a little hypocritical.

While mowing the lawns yesterday I was sweating so much that I felt like Karen and Frosty after Professor Hinkle locked them in the greenhouse (only Santa wasn’t going to save me). Then to make matters worse last night the sky grew darker, the thunder started, the wind began howling and it poured rain! Just when you thought the day could not have been more miserable, hot and sticky, the angels started sweating. It was a little rain at first but then the skies opened. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was practically falling at 180-degree angles. I had to turn my head sideways just to watch it come down. It never rains in California my butt!

Of course weekends like this are very draining on our electricity providers. I figured I would do my part and stay home out of the heat in my air-conditioned house watching TV with all of the ceiling fans on brewing iced tea and cooking things in my microwave oven. Oops, gotta go, I just blew another fuse…