My Fabulous Toasty Table

The change from summer to fall has taken me by surprise. In fact, it's almost like fall just skipped a step. It went from HOT to chilly in a matter of days. I kid you not. At this point, I've taken to wearing long pants to bed and sleeping in long-sleeve shirts. At school I keep my jacket on the entire day. It seems all of the buildings here have been designed to keep cool in the summer, not warm in the winter. Which seems strange to me given that this is a mountain town and the cold season lasts longer than the hot. -_-

Today it rained, all day. In fact, it's still raining. And cold. Which is why I opted not to make the daunting journey into town for dinner and karaoke. Instead, I decided to stay home and watch subbed tv on my trusty compy 2.0. And in the spirit of being a cozy homebody, tonight for the first time, I set up my kotatsu.
 
A fixture of all Japanese homes, it's a table with a heating element attached to the bottom of it. You throw a blanket over it and sit under it to keep warm. Since I don't have central heating and I've yet to haul kerosene for the fan heater from the gas station to my apartment (a trek I'm not looking forward to), I started this puppy up. And oh, it's nice. When I first arrived at my apartment, it was just a coffee table in my tatami room. I actually used it as a nightstand. But it has since been given a place of honor in the hardwood, "tv" room.
 
Being that I come from the land of heating vents and furnaces, it took a few confused grumbles on my part to actually set the thing up. However, once you really get looking at it it's pretty simple. Basically, you just plop it down wherever you want to sit, preferably near an outlet so you can plug it in. In my case I went with the room containing cushy chairs with backs. It's got a removable table top on it so that you can throw the futon over it and still have a usable table. Then you plug it in, turn the dial to your desired setting, and bask in the warm orange glow. ^_^ It's really a very simple design. The "heater" isn't much more than a glorified light bulb, but man does it make your feet and legs (and anything else you might put under there...) nice and toasty. Dan mentioned you can get lifts for the kotatsu legs to accommodate larger people. Being a person of, well, somewhat of a short stature, it's not really an issue for me.
 
I had no idea what I was missing the past couple of weeks, sitting here wrapped up in blankets like a moron. oy! So far the warmest I've set it to is medium, though I have a feeling from the way winter has been described around here I'll be trying out the higher settings soon enough.

So there you have it, my kotatsu. As I've been teaching my students to say, "It's fabulous!"