BITTERly cold

Weather is not an issue in San Diego and if you ask the Danes, weather is not an issue in Denmark. "There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing," is the local saying. If there was ever a built-in excuse to go shopping, this was it. Of course, several items that seemed very cute and functional when purchased in California turned out to be kinda useless in Denmark (e.g. folding umbrellas that buckle in the wind, scarves that aren't long enough to wrap around your head and neck multiple times to keep that cold wind out).

We've actually been very lucky with the weather compared to the last 2 years from what everyone tells us. It didn't rain much during the fall, and indeed, it hadn't even snowed much until yesterday when we woke up to 3 inches of fresh snow. The meteorologists are master's of understatement: "Cloudy with a little snow," can sometimes mean a white-out and "light to moderate winds," can be gale-force.

As for the temperature, well, it's cold, no kidding right? Especially coming from San Diego, anything below 60 degrees was going to be cold to me. To be fair, the temperatures don't fluctuate much - if it's 20 degrees during the day, it will be 18 degrees at night. Not much comfort when it feels like 8 degrees thanks to the wind, but it could be a lot worse and we've certainly been spared the nasty cold that is currently gripping the rest of Europe.

Take today, for example - sitting here on the couch under a blanket, the view from the windows is quite pretty. Snow on the ground, cloudy skies and snow flakes falling with a breeze blowing around. All very quaint and cozy...except for one little problem. Several of the windows are WIDE OPEN and it's freakin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth. Not only am I under a blanket, I'm sitting here in a t-shirt, undershirt and wearing my thickest down vest to try to stay warm.

WHY are my windows wide open, you might ask? Well, that would be thanks to my ridiculous husband who picked last night to light our fireplace for the first time...20 minutes before our dinner guests were due to arrive. It only took minutes for the entire apartment to be filled with a thick haze of chocking gray smoke and basically, we've had the windows open ever since!

We were told by the landlord that the fireplace works, and indeed it does. The problem is that it likely has not been used in years, as the previous tenant was a little old lady and I can't imagine her hauling up a load of firewood in the dinky antiquated elevator like my crazy husband did. Never one to do things by halves, instead of just buying a small bundle of wood to try, instead, he ordered 10 big bundles of firewood with 2 big bags of kindling. These are now stacked in my living room...not exactly my idea of home decor.

The fire certainly roared to life indicating that the flue was wide open, mercifully. But whatever needed to burn off smoked like crazy and without any type of grate or doors to close off the open fire burning in my living room, smoke poured back into the apartment for a bit instead of up the chimney. Isabel, who had been happily coloring on the floor, came running into the kitchen to tell me "Daddy's setting the room on fire!" Coming out of the kitchen to investigate, my eyes immediately started watering and it was pretty evident that we were going to set off the fire alarm.

Indeed, off it went, but thankfully (or not), the alarm only sounds in our apartment and not the entire building - indeed, there is no building alarm at all. That actually freaks me out a bit, especially since Danes like decorating their Christmas trees with real candles and then actually light them! And to hold off the dark of winter, burning candles is a major past time. My fear is someone falling asleep with a lit cigarette. As my hilarious brother-in-law, Andrew, said, it's a fire alarm policy based on Mutual Assured Destruction, that old Cold War mentality of "you don't burn me down, I won't burn you down." Not much comfort to me or Isabel, apparently, whom I found a few minutes later huddled in the far corner of the kitchen too scared to go back into the living room for fear of being incinerated or asphyxiated from the fire.

We opened up a bunch of windows in an attempt to clear the air before our guests arrived. Of course, that immediately dropped the temperature inside 30 degrees. The brie and pate that I had taken out beforehand to warm turned icy cold within seconds and probably tasted like smoke, too, by the time I served it. I'm thinking that ice cold smoked brie is not going to catch on as a culinary trend.

Fortunately, our guests were very bemused by the entire episode and only had to freeze for a few minutes before we were able to shut the windows, as most of the smoke cleared. Unfortunately, the smell has lingered and everything now smells like a bonfire, which explains why I'm sitting here typing with frozen fingers. I'd finally write my London blog entry, but I'm afraid that the blowing snow might short-out my laptop.

It's a miracle Dennis has survived living with me for over a quarter-century for all the times I've been tempted to strangle him or maybe throw him out one of the windows that are currently open! I've been trying not to be bitter about being moved from San Diego, but I did not anticipate that feeling would be replaced by being BITTERly cold inside my own home! I think I need my hat....