Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

[Still getting a kick out of beamer242's 'ho-ho-ho-ho' icon, as you can see.]

Well, I thought I might make it all the way to the winter solstice this year before having to actually use the furnace to keep my apartment livable. But it didn't quite work out that way.

I was feeling chilly enough last night to nudge the thermostat up from 65 to 67 degrees, just in case, but the furnace still hadn't kicked in when I woke up early this morning. When I double-checked the thermostat ('cause it felt a lot colder than 67 in my apartment), it turned out that I hadn't actually flipped the switch all the way past "off" to "heat" when I changed over from air conditioning last month. Once I pushed the lever up all the way, the furnace kicked in with that familiar "something singed" smell that accompanies the first hot air through the dusty vents in over 9 months. Meanwhile, I beat a hasty retreat back to bed, to cower under the duvet for the next hour or two, until I was finally confident that getting out of bed wouldn't turn me into a block of ice. I'm a morning person and usually feel plenty warm upon waking -- ready to be up and at 'em -- but not when the ambient temperature in my bedroom falls below sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

So, I admit it -- I'm a wuss. I'm not such a big, tough, cold-loving Wisconsinite looking with scorn and pity on these soft Southerners who think that 40 degrees is winter coat weather, after all. Maybe I shouldn't have been so proud of going out in this winter's first snowfall Sunday morning in just a turtleneck and thin wool blazer. God doesn't like people to come to church feeling smug, it seems, even if the smugness is only about their weather-resistance and not the illusion of moral or spiritual superiority.

Pride goeth before a really cold night and an increase in the gas bill, I guess!