Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
The day has been a busy one with me running all over getting blood tests done in two places and a tire checked and filled. The errands meant going across from one side of the cape to the other. The worst of it all was no morning coffee. Blood letting I don’t mind but missing my morning coffee makes me grumpy.
The cold just doesn’t seem to want to leave. It’s 27° now and last night was in the single digits, but I didn’t care. I was inside, warm and cozy. Gracie made a pit stop on the run last night before bed. She wasn’t enjoying the cold.
When I was a kid, on the coldest mornings, frost gathered inside on the bottom window panes. To me, the frost always looked like mountain ranges spread across the pane with the summits all different heights. I used to take my fingernail and draw or write on the windows. I never remember being cold, but I suspect the house was not well insulated. Radiators were the source of the heat. The one in my room was on the floor at the foot of the bed. I remember my father fiddling with the silver control on the left side of the radiator. On really cold days, when I got home from school, I’d lean against the hot radiator to get warm. After playing in the snow, we used to put our wet mittens on the top of the radiator so they would dry faster. I loved the sounds of the radiator: the hissing of the steam and the banging of the pipes.
I know my house is warmer and there is never any frost, but I miss that old radiator. It is one more thing gone.
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February 22, 2011 at 2:29 pm
American weather men predicts the cold weather to continue at least until the end of March except for Scandinavia, here it will continue until the end of April. But they were thankfully wrong when it came to December and January. Then they said that December would be warm here and January cold and it became the opposite. I do hope they´re wrong again 🙂 🙂
We had some sun and some snow here today, but it was a quite nice day in total.
I do miss those old radiators! I sat beside one for six years when I went to school and I was never cold 🙂 We had them at home too and every autumn we had to let all air out of them with a little key 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
February 22, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Christer,
American weathermen don’t even get it right here! I can’t imagine their percentage in guessing your weather. If they all just said cold, most of them would be right.
The old radiators weren’t all that great in heating rooms, but I do miss the sounds, particularly the hissing of the steam.
February 22, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Did I ever tell that I was Captain of our fencing team in High School? We had to align those epee blades inbetween the radiator lines. Had to keep them hot while fencing in the winter. Then when your name was called for the match we would get the blade, keep it in and out of our arm pits, to the mat for the match. So often kids that didn’t think it made a difference lost because the opponent hit the blade tip and broke it off. I consider my greatest achievement in life, well getting married is probably number one, but beating West Point, a college with big kids, was my walk away my Senior year and the trophy still sits in the lobby of the High School.
So blood tests for surgery? They put a port in my chest because Cancer patients have to have a blood draw every week. No needles in the arm. They pop this thing and clean the line and back and forth and when ready the blood just flows into the tube in seconds. But of course I hope you never have to get one of those. It’s almost time for the surgeon to remove mine. God Bless that day!
February 22, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Z&Me
I had no idea about the épée tips being kept warm, but it makes perfect sense given how much more fragile they are than the rest of the epee. Good for you beating West Point. I’m sure no one expected you would. High school kids-easy pickings.
The blood tests were for my regular yearly physical and my blood thinner. I don’ need any for surgery.
February 23, 2011 at 4:27 pm
The unrest in Libya and in the other parts of the Middle East is causing the price of oil to skyrocket. Next winter my be an especially cold one in the homes of low income families. The US House of Representatives is taking a meat ax to the budget. Already the Republican leaders are planning on killing subsidies for fuel oil for the needy along with all of the other government agencies that they oppose. No one in Washington wants to face the music and cut the three biggest items which make up the deficit, Defense spending, Health and Human Services and Medicare.
Let’s all take a up a collection to keep people from freezing to death next February.
February 23, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Bob,
When Joe Kennedy comes on TV talking about the heating crisis for low income families, he makes a point of thanking Citco and the people of Venezuela for being the only one who listened. It seems he is right.