Warmer climes?

Even with all of this we are still cold.

Sweartagod, this might be the winter that does me in. Yesterday I woke at 3 a.m. and discovered we had no water. None. I called the city and their people actually showed up within an hour but determined the issue wasn't municipal, nor was it actually in my house. It was probably in the three-flat in front of us. Apparently the reason I've never been able to locate our water meter is because our water comes in through that building and is piped over to our place! I didn't have keys to the other building's basement though, so the city water guys couldn't go in to try and help me find the problem, which was above and beyond what they would have been required to do, but were being so awesome they offered to help any way they could.

An hour later Mich actually did locate the keys to the three-flat's basement and I looked all over but couldn't locate the problem. So we called our handyman. Hours and hours later—and a little tutorial from our handyman on just how our water got over to our building—we figured out the tenants accidentally left the basement door by our pipe open and the cold was enough to zap us. A space heater and 45 minutes later? We had water again!

But seriously, this cold weather is the fucking worst. I feel like the pipes freezing—something that hasn't happened to me in the 20 years I've lived in Chicago (20 years?!)—is the iced up straw that could break this camel's back. I wonder if I can convince my company to open a satellite office in California or Louisiana or ANYWHERE THAT ISN'T FROZEN 70% O FTHE TIME.