It’s not bad enough that we’ve got snow UTYA and the temperature has been 50 degrees below freezing most of the days of official winter and above 32 only once in recent memory. In fact it’s three above zero right now and it’s about to get a little cooler in here.
Rising before dawn, I turned up the heat and put on the coffee. Then I came in here to check the news and get my feet warm where the oil burner blows right on ‘em. Only not today. I noticed with a white knuckled dread that the familiar thrum of fossil fuel being turned into bone warming BTUs was absent.
Still dark, I grabbed a flashlight and slipped on Bean boots because I have to go outside to enter the cellar through the bulkhead. I had kept it shoveled all winter for such an emergency but some of the frozen stuff had calved off the roof and now needed to be broken up before it could even be shoveled. I got a shovel from the garage and came back to the task. When I finally snapped the door open it flipped a quart of snow into the boot of my sockless left foot. I think I cursed.
In the cellar I pressed the little red reset button and went back into the house to enjoy my cold coffee. The furnace stayed on only long enough for me to get boots off and my foot dry. Back on with boots, jacket and gloves and I reentered Dante’s refer and mashed the stupid little goddam red button. This time I waited. It went off and I mashed and it went off and I mashed and then, hateful silence.
I have on a sweater, long johns and slipper socks. I don’t even want to know what the inside temp is.
Twice this year I have been up on the roof to shovel the couple of feet of snow that accumulated. You have to get at this stuff while it’s fluff or it’ll turn to cement in the rain and only a teenage back is up to the task. Of course the little pirates get $50 an hour so it is good to get it done by one’s self. Now I can’t even push it off the roof anymore because the snow is stacked up to the eaves. The guy who plows the drive came back with his front loader and back hoe so that he could redistribute the Andes that have closed in our driveway so that even the Cooper can’t turn around. He doesn’t get quite as much as the teen hijackers but it ain’t cheap and according to the Farmer’s Almanac I expect he will be back before the croci crack through the last piles at the end of April.
Okay, now I’m getting those nose icicles you see on little kids and if I wasn’t heading to Phil’s later I would be tempted to pour a schnick into the last cup of coffee. We both have jackets on as we wait for the oil man who was scheduled to come today anyway. Florida sounds awfully damn good. Umbrella drinks at Ocean Alley on the boardwalk watching the ocean liners go by and that woman with the Harley bod who skates backwards with a monkey on her shoulder and very little else between her skin and the sun’s rays. Or Isla Mujeres, though I’ve never been there. I just know it’s hot and always five o’clock. Round trip for under three hundred bucks or six hours of roof shoveling. My fingers are numbing. I still don’t want to know how cold it is in here. This is what happens when typing with gloves on. Not bad, eh? My Christmas scarf dhelps too. It’s two and a half hours since I called the oil company. Nopt dmuch you c an do. It’s just one of the things you almost l;earn to live wioth, like the roof shovelers. I just lookef and the temp is 48, INSIDE!!
Oh ho! Do my wondering eyes deceive? No, it is the big yellow truck that I called for three and a half hours ago. No explanation why we weren’t on auto delivery as we had contracted for. Very nice man. Very apologetic. I had to put the baseball bat away. “I’m just the driver. You’ll have to call headquarters in Montreal to find out how they missed it.” Right. All is forgiven. Sweetness and light prevails.
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you call that cold? I slipped on the ice...in the shower!
ReplyDeleteHey! Maybe your roof qualifies as a "shovel-ready" project for sum dem $timulus$ $$$$!
ReplyDeleteOn Darwin’s 200th birthday, only 39 percent of Americans believe in evolution.
ReplyDeletePolling also discovered that a mere 42% believe in the law of gravity. While only 18% do not believe in gravity, a disturbing 40% of Americans think it is optional.
On a more encouraging note, a full 82% would rather eat chicken shit than go hunting with Dick Cheney. The remainder are being humanely euthanized.
Stimulus Package Explained. (Full report HERE)
ReplyDeleteIf you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Queda
If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan.
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy organic).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea.
If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India
If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan
If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria.
And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US.