All I want for the holidays is heat for my house. And sanity.

The weather has changed down here. It's a great deal colder. And becuase we don't want to give in to paying Entergy any more than we have to, this house of ours is cold.

As a result of such cold, I've been very testy and have the urge to snap everyone's head off. Even, I'm ashamed to say it, the little guy's. God bless him, he sees that I am on the emotional warpath and suggests that I might like to hear a song. When I tell him I don't want to hear it right now, he pouts and says I hurt his feelings. Then I am forced to explain very carefully and sanely that I'm very sorry that I did so and I just need the quiet. Only then did I almost feel better. Almost.

I hate the cold. I always have.

When my family moved us up to central Pennsylvania after many years in Houston, my room became known as "The Sauna", because I would turn up the baseboard heat in there to eighty degrees. The only time I can remember being halfway comfortable in cold weather was when I was pregnant. That's the time when I was the human incubator, when heat and humidity was torture for a short stretch of the summer, when ConEd could have hooked me up to the apartment building in which I lived at the time and I would have saved everyone loads of dough on their heating bills. Aside from that time, I am still convinced that the colder temperatures absolutely stink.

Seasonal Affective Disorder? I am a case study. First it begins with the onset of Daylight Savings. Then the temperatures drop, and it has begun. I am a reptile masquerading as a mammal - I just cannot get warm enough. I cannot get enough sun. I even have a pet that shares my seasonal convictions - my dog Gilda hates wet weather to begin with (I always imagine her doing an inward "Eww, eww, ewwww," with every paw in contact with wet pavement or grass), and her four years in a climate in which it actually snows threw her for a loop. I'll never forget those days in which I opened the door for us to embark on her daily walk, we both beheld the snow on the ground, and she would turn and give me a look that said, "WHY are you doing this to me?"

So wish me luck on surviving yet another winter. And pray for my family, too. They are going to need all the help they can get with me around, their own personal weather Grinch.

Is there any way I can pull a Bill Murray and steal Punxsutawney Phil so that the groundhog never, ever sees his shadow again? Maybe that will help...