Giving In

I have often cited the amazing weather here lakeside. As I ponder the live news and weather from WTOP in DC, I sit on my veranda and enjoy bountiful sunshine over the lake. It’s early morning in winter, so I have to wear sweatpants and a long-sleeve t-shirt. It drops below 50 degrees (F) at night here, but quickly recovers to the 70s. My morning coffee outfit will return to shorts and short-sleeve t-shirt . . . shortly.

I say this not to gloat (ok, a little gloat, a gloat-ee perhaps) but to introduce a surrender on my part. For years I have been telling people we don’t have heating or air-conditioning in our house, because we don’t need it. My dear wife bought an electric heating pad for the bed, which she installs for the winter, but which we rarely ever use. Local friends have warned me that eventually I would feel otherwise and want heating and air-conditioning. I resisted. Some cited climate change, and while the summers have become a little hotter and the winters a little colder, the data say nothing more than that: a little. Others were more persuasive: “you’re getting older, and the temperature will feel more extreme.” This was an inevitability staring me in the face.

I already noticed that “my blood had thinned” when we returned to the States annually for Thanksgiving. Back in the day, I dodged dinosaurs while running in shorts and t-shirts in howling DC snowstorms. I took perverse delight in running on “black-flag” heat-warning days, when breathing outside was allegedly equivalent to chain-smoking a pack of unfiltered cigarettes (nobody who has ever smoked an unfiltered cigarette agrees with this comparison, BTW). But now I shivered in the 40s, snugly wrapped in multiple layers of fleece and down and anything else I could find. Yes, I had hard evidence that age was turning me into a weather wimp.

One technique we used to avoid the warmest, driest part of the year here (April-June) was to travel. Late Spring is an ideal time to head to Europe, before the crowds and heat settle there. Alas, as Don Henley crooned, “But there’re just so many summers. And just so many springs.” What to do when our world travel plans diminish and end?

I could wait and see. Perhaps the adjustment will be gradual enough I will accommodate it with some extra cool margaritas in summer, sweatshirts in winter. Perhaps. Or I could prepare for it. Those who know me already know which I chose. So, we’re putting air conditioning units into the bedrooms. They are capable of heat or cooling, and sufficient to ensure a good, comfortable night’s rest regardless of the ambient conditions. Of course, it can’t be that simple, can it?

We already max-out electricity use, and adding air conditioning will push us to the very top of the spectrum. To explain, electric power in Mexico is a state-run monopoly. The most basic usage is practically free, and accommodates the average poor Mexican household with a small fridge, a television, and a few electric lights (oh, and cell phones, always cell phones). A secondary level doubles that usage, covering the majority of Mexican families who might also have an electric appliance or two. The third level triples the usage and costs, and this is where most gringos pay, owing to the plethora of electric devices we have. Finally, there is a penalty rate for extreme usage, called DAC, which doubles or triples the total cost. You enter into DAC by average use exceeding a standard for a set period of time, and stay in it (thus fined) until the average dips below the limit. Now that sounds horrible, except that even in high gringo usage, our monthly electric bill runs USD $75. It’s insanely high by local standards, but I’ll bet most readers would gladly trade bills with me!

Adding electric heating/cooling would undoubtedly push us permanently into DAC. And we live in a place with year-round, abundant, strong sunlight. So we’ll be responsible and install eight solar panels and a whole-house power wall back-up system at the same time, which also eliminates the need for future blog posts about the occasional power outages which force us to play beat-the-clock with our fridge and freezer.

I consider it being prepared, but it is fair to say I am giving in. Time stands still for no one, but the local power utility stands still all the time during outages. Better to go solar, add a battery, and a little heat and cooling now. Maybe it’s not a surrender. Maybe it’s just a tactical retreat. Or even I’m attacking the problem from a different direction! Whatever. As Mr. Buffet said, “but there’s booze in the blender, and soon it will render . . .”