It's time to the pay the piper. You've had your fun. You've sat in Dolores Park in January. You've basked in weather that was almost like Southern California's at this time of year, and now it's freezing. It was below freezing in parts of the East Bay this morning, and a lot of real housewives of Walnut Creek had to throw some protective burlap over their gardens. And somewhere up in Napa County it hit 13 degrees this morning. That just ain't right.

You can contemplate records and complain to your coworkers all you like, but you knew winter had to arrive sometime. The rain will be here by Thursday, and this should be a pretty Arctic weekend. Just hunker down and recognize how easy we have it, comparatively. Catch up on some crosswords. We hear you can download pirated episodes of the new season of Downton Abbey. That should tide you over. And at this rate, if those typical springy days arrive toward the end of February, our winter's only going to be about a month long. But let's not make any promises.