Hi there, Dear Reader. It’s just past noon here in New Hometown, Florida, and by the standards of the Sunshine State, it’s a wee bit nippy. Right now the temperature is 66˚F (19˚C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the north-northwest at 4 MPH (7 KM/H) and humidity at 49%, the feels-like temperature is 66˚F (19˚C). It’s going to warm up a bit by late afternoon, but not by a lot; the high today is expected to reach 69˚F (21˚C) under partly sunny skies. Tonight, the forecast calls for mostly clear skies and a low of 42˚F (6˚C).
I have, of course, lived in or visited places where the climate is not in the subtropical category. From 1966 to 1972, my mom and I – and after the spring of 1969, my older half-sister – lived in Bogota, Colombia, which is that South American nation’s capital as well as its largest city. Because it is located on a plateau in the Andes Mountains at an average of 2,640 metres (8,660 ft) above sea level (thus making it the third highest capital city in the world, after La Paz and Quito), Bogota has a cool, often chilly climate year-round. When I lived there, I was used to the cold temperature – we rented homes or apartments with fireplaces, plus we ate an average of five meals a day and dressed in layers.
And, of course, even though the south of Spain has Mediterranean climate and isn’t as cold as Bogota year-round, I happened to participate in the College Consortium for International Studies’ Semester in Spain program in Seville during the fall semester of the 1988-1989 academic year. When I got there on September 21, 1988, it coincided with the first day of autumn. The days were nice and warm, but the evenings were, as they say, crisp and cool. And as we got closer and closer to winter, the skies were often cloudy, and I got caught in several torrential downpours on my way home from class in October. By late November, Seville had days when the temperature was like today’s here in my corner of Florida; 66˚F (19˚C) was often as high as the mercury rose then, and because the apartment I shared with two Spanish guys had no central heating, it was like living inside a refrigerator.
If I had managed to keep my townhouse and not moved here, I would probably turn on the heating at night to ease the chill a bit. I hated the “smells like something’s burning” scent that permeated the two-story house where I lived from February 1978 to April of 2016, as well as the higher-than-usual electric bill that comes with using central heating, so – taking a page from my mother’s playbook – I only turned it on a few times during my last winter in Miami. Mainly at night so I could sleep better and not have to get undressed to take a shower in a cold house!
Here, the Caregiver does not use the central heating, not even when the mercury drops to the near-freezing point. She, too, hates the smell given off by what I assume is the hot insulation material, as well as that weird dry-air feel. And since I have been demoted from being The Boyfriend to The Guy in the Smallest Room in the House, I have no say in the matter even though I am the only other adult living here who contributes to the house finances. If I did have a say, I’d suggest that we turn on the heater during the night so it wouldn’t be freezing in the morning. I don’t….so I think that I will probably end up buying a smallish space heater for my room.
Today I’ll be getting the Blu-ray of Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin from Amazon. I bought it for slightly less than $11 to add a comedy to my Blu-ray collection, which – when it arrives – will consist of 363 high-definition (HD) Blu-ray titles (313 feature films and 50 TV seasons) and 23 4K ultra-high definition (UHD) 4K Blu-ray discs. All of the UHD titles sets are upgrades to HD titles I own, but pretty soon I’ll do what I did when HD Blu-rays were the new format in town and DVDs were the old format: I’ll stop ordering new releases in HD-only packages – unless I have no choice – and just order 4K sets that include HD Blu-rays as a bonus.
I bought The 40-Year-Old Virgin on DVD in 2006 – according to my Amazon order history – when my half-sister Vicky (who hates computers, does not have an Internet account, and distrusts online shopping) asked me to order it for her. Apparently, one of her co-workers or friends told her the movie was funny and that she should get it. She could have just driven to FYE at the Dolphin Mall and bought it herself – why she had me order it I have no idea. (Judging from the January 30, 2006 order date, it wasn’t a birthday present request, as her birthday is March 10.)
At the time, Vicky and I were still on civil terms, so I bought it for her. For some mondo bizarro reason, she wanted it to be delivered to Mom’s house (it wasn’t legally mine then) rather than to her address, and since she didn’t visit us every day – she was working at the now-closed and unlamented Metropolitan Hospital in Miami – the DVD would be in the house till she went to pick it up. Mom asked her if we could watch it before Vicky took it home, and my half-sister agreed to let us watch it first.
Now, I had mixed feelings about watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin with my mom; I knew it would not have any explicit sex scenes, but it does have lots of raunchy Judd Apatow-style humor, much of it centered on sex and sex acts. I had no idea how Mom, who was then 77 years old, would react. She wasn’t a prude like my grandmother – her mom – and she tolerated my collection of Playboy magazines without complaint, but…yeah…I was skittish about watching the movie with my mother.
As it turns out, my mom laughed just as much as I did to such bits as:
Cal: You’re gay now?
David: No, I’m not gay. I’m just celibate.
Cal: I think… I mean, that sounds gay. I just want you to know this is, like, the first conversation of, like, three conversations that leads to you being gay. Like, there’s this, and then in a year it’s like, “Oh, you know, I’m kinda gonna want to get back out there, but I think I like guys,” and then there’s the big, “Oh, I’m… I’m… I’m a gay guy now.”
David: [smirks] You’re gay for saying that.
Cal: I’m gay for saying that?
David: You know how I know you’re gay?
Cal: How? How do you know I’m gay?
David: Because you macramed yourself a pair of jean shorts.
Cal: You know how I know *you’re* gay? You just told me you’re not sleeping with women anymore.
David: You know how I know you’re gay?
Cal: How? ‘Cause you’re gay? And you can tell who other gay people are?
David: You know how I know you’re gay?
Cal: How?
David: You like Coldplay.
Oddly enough, as much as I enjoyed The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I never got around to getting my own copy on DVD or Blu-ray…until now.
At last report, my copy is listed as Out for Delivery, so I should be able to watch it tonight.
Well, I don’t have much else to report about today, except to say that the government deposited my $600 stimulus payment into my bank account over the weekend. Some of it already went out to pay bills, especially the credit card payments for my new UHD 4K TV and the few Christmas presents I bought last month. Other than that…no hay novedad, folks. At least not in my personal life.
This is as good a place as any to close this post from lovely New Hometown, Florida, so stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things!
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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