Hello. My name is Laughing Muse and I am a climate wuss.
First off: everyone east of the Rockies and north of, oh, say Texas: you all have a free pass not to read this entry. I am going to bemoan the cold weather, and specifically how cold my house is; and you all don't want to hear such patently sissified talk from someone who may experience freezing temperatures this weekend...but hasn't yet, and in fact has not experienced them in over 20 years. 40 degrees makes this person bring in the brass monkeys. So you can all head off and read things that won't make you roll your eyes so hard that they click against the back of your skull.
I got the thermal blinds installed, and the thermal curtains re-hung; but it's still stupidly cold downstairs at my place. This afternoon I finally broke out the electric space heater, set it at the top of my stairs, and cranked it up so that it would at least warm the upper story (where my office - where I spend most of my days - and my bedroom - where I spend my nights - are located.) After the first five minutes of burning off several years' accumulated dust, the space heater worked fantastically. I checked the back of the unit to make sure it wouldn't heat up the wall, then moved the space heater as far back on the landing as possible, facing down the stairs: it would warm the upper story air, but the heater wasn't placed so as to trip any hairless ape who may have momentarily forgotten that it was there. For a while, that worked.
Around 5:30, after the sun had been down for a while, I went down to go make dinner. It was COLD, dammit. The outside temperature was 23 degrees Farenheit (-2 Celcius) I did not relish the thought of standing there, kneading cold ground beef into hamburger patties, cooking a few of said hamburger patties, putting together enough "other" stuff to make something resembling a balanced meal, and then running back upstairs into the warmth. So I devised a plan:
I boiled two pots of water, poured the water into my portable air pump pot, collected some food (cheetos, cookies, packets of cocoa powder, a large bowl of salad as a concession to the need for nutrition), got a thermal mug from the cupboard, and took those items upstairs. Then I went back down, got the cats' "pig feeder" and food bucket, snagged several candles and a lighter, and headed back up the stairs. The idea was to get enough food- and drinkstuff collected so that neither I nor the cats would have to come downstairs again that evening, unless we were really fond of the idea of shivering while inside a manmade structure.
Then I thought: I haven't changed the bedsheets since I moved in. It's been two weeks. They need to be washed. And I'm actually warm enough that I can surely stand one quick foray downstairs to get clean sheets to change the bed. So I fixed myself a mug of cocoa, rinsed the spoon, and headed back down - AGAIN - into the Icy Lair. I got my clean bedsheets, headed upstairs, changed the bed, and found that - hey, I'm warm enough for one more trip downstairs to put the laundry into the washer. (I was not, however, warmed enough to unload the dishwasher. That task shall wait until morning.)
So now I'm back upstairs. The washer is cycling through. I've eaten the salad and drunk the first mug of cocoa, lit the candles in my room (I found the longer hanging section that lets the candelabra hang down low enough that I won't end up with a sooty ceiling), and have the music playing full blast. I've also taken two gelcaps for my back pain (remnant of my slips on the black ice in the various parking lots when I ran errands yesterday) and fired up the heating pad. I -=almost=- feel good enough to do a few loads of regular laundry tonight...
...except for the fact that I airdry most of my things, and anything I hung up to airdry - even inside the house - would have iced over by morning. And this isn't even the coldest it will get!! We're technically below the freezing, but that's the daily high. We're supposed to get snow on Wednesday, and nighttime temperatures are predicted to drop down to 16 degrees Farenheit.
