I'm a sucker for a wood burning fireplace.
I know that isn't environmentally conscientious, but I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, a house isn't a home without a real fireplace. None of these pussy push button gas logs for me. Every place I've lived in the past 20 years has had one and the boyfriend feels the same way.
Of course, a fireplace is what lead, at least partially, to our current situation. The home we bought back in 2005 had a stunner of a fireplace, an architectural wonder. It was so amazing it blinded us to the house's glaringly obvious structural issues. By the time we had finally corrected all of those, our savings had been drained and we had no safety net when the bottom dropped out of the economy. Hence, we live in Bakersfield.
But even here, we wouldn't do without a fireplace. The rental we first moved into had one. And when we were looking for houses, a good fireplace was a must. And this house certainly has one. It actually looks more like a giant pizza oven, but that's half of it's charm. It's so large you could probably roast a whole pig in it.
If you could ever use it.
It works, of course. It's just against the law.
Bakersfield has notoriously bad air pollution and the winter months are the worst. So from November 1st through sometime in March or April, when the air gets particularly bad, wood fires are banned.
We haven't had a fire since Thanksgiving. The air has been spectacularly bad, even for Bako.
Now, mind, you, it's only in the winter months when the ban is in effect. During July and August, when it's 112 degrees even after dark, you're free to have as big a fire as you want, any day of the week. That's thoughtful of them.
Ordinarily, not being able to have a fire would be nothing more than an aesthetic loss. But the night time temps have been dipping into the 20's and in case I haven't mentioned it in awhile, half of our house is open directly to the rafters. One whole half of the house is a meat locker after the sun goes down. Just trying to kept the house heated to the low 60's means the furnace is running 24/7. Our power bill last month was $400. So a fire would be greatly appreciated.
We've cheated of course. Lit the occasional renegade fire when it got particularly cold. What was the worst they could do? Well, it turns out they can fine you and they even have an anonymous tip line where your neighbors can turn you in. If we've learned nothing else in our time here it's that our neighbors are an annoying pack of snitches. So, no fires.
But yesterday, the skies parted, literally, and and the air was deemed merely "unhealthful", which meant we could finally have a roaring fire.
As I stared into the flames last night, nursing a glass of wine, my thoughts turned to insurance fraud and I began to wonder just how difficult it is to get away with arson. Not that I would do it. Just exploring all the options for leaving this place.
