You wanna know who's loving it here at the zoo? These guys.
Cold? Thees ain't cold. You want cold try where we came from...
There aren't very many things I hate...ok, there are quite a few things I hate (like laundry and housework and gluten free grocery shopping and stupid people and trying to find the fricking tweezers when I need them and one of the daughters has borrowed them and then forgot where she left them and finding dirty socks in the fridge...and probably 8 gazillion other things...but I digress) however not many of them compare with being cold. And since I'm not an arctic fox (even if my laundry occasionally smells like them--betcha didn't know they really, really stink. Not as much as this guy, but still) when it gets this cold I get a little pissy. Alright, maybe a lot pissy, but...
Have you ever had hypothermia? No? Lemme tell you about it. You know how on TV they make it look like people who froze to death just went to sleep and never woke up? No. Effing. Way. It is the absolute most painful thing you can imagine. Once, about a hundred years ago when I was young and stupid I hung out with friends who lived about an hour away from me. Since we were going out I wanted to look fashionable and opted for a sweet leather bomber jacket as outerwear. It was in the 30's and warm enough..except I didn't know that I would end up staying over because we had a bit too much fun. Who checks the weather when that happens? The trouble was that apparently the heater coil on my car had died and so there was no heat in my car. Overnight a cold spell like we've been having set in. It was like -2 and with the wind felt like -26 or something, and about 15 minutes into my hour drive I was seriously cold. At the half-way point every nerve in my entire body was screaming. Excruciating doesn't even begin to describe it. I don't think there's a word in the English language that can come close to that kind of pain. I considered stopping, but at least in the car I had a little protection from the wind. "Just get home. Just get home." It was the only thought I had as I drove the rest of the way on autopilot, rocking and moaning and crying..did I mention how much it hurt? Warming up (after passing out cold the minute I got inside my apartment) was no picnic either, which I had to do just so I could drive myself to the ER.
Needless to say, I don't like the cold. It drives me nuts to see the zookeeper running around in shorts all winter long, but hey. To each his own. I told him when we got married that his chief job was going to be to keep me warm. I think he thought I was maybe being sexy and not talking about, you know, heat...
Our house is old. I know I've said this before but it bears repeating. And non-profit really is exactly what it sounds like. So when our ancient oil-fired steam (with radiators and everything) furnace died a few years ago and the quote we got for a new heating system was $25,000 (about what we spent in heating oil every year. Ok, maybe not but New Englanders are pretty used to $600 a month in oil in the winter), we spent a couple of winters heating with a wood stove and a garage heater. I spent those winters with my ass glued to a bean bag chair in front of said wood stove kicking the tortoises out of the way and trying to see how close I could get to it without actually setting myself on fire. Two years of listening to me bitch about how cold it was was about all he could take. Trust me, it was a happy day when we (and by "we" I mean he and a friend) finally, finally ripped out the old steam pipes and replaced them with brand new forced hot water baseboard heaters and a boiler that runs on natural gas.
Heat! Blessed, beautiful heat! In every room in the house. Hallelujah. No more electric blanket. No more frozen hair products that had to be thawed to use. Most of all, no more playing Pioneer Woman, keeping the stove going and hauling in wood in the middle of a snowstorm...or stacking wood or trying to get the wood to burn or...wait, what?
Me: "Whaddaya mean we're keeping it?"
Him: "I like it. I reminds me of home."
Me (having not grown up in the middle of Maine): "But it takes up the whole fricking kitchen! And everybody trips over the hearth. And we don't need it anymore..."
Him: "I like it. And it can't hurt to have it. Save on the gas bill."
Me: "Grrrrrr."
Well, two things happened. The first was that using the wood stove immediately caused the brandy new pipes to the brandy new baseboards to freeze, because that end of the house was so warm the zone never called for heat. Oops? The second was the first month's gas bill. $11.00. I thought for sure it was some sort of mistake, but when the next month's came and it was only $12.00 I celebrated by hauling all the wood out of the wood box and back to the wood pile (do you have any idea how messy a wood box can be? All that fricking bark everywhere.) and cranking the thermostats up to 72*.
Er. Except cranking them up isn't exactly what I did. Because apparently (and over my protests at the time--they were farking expensive!) we had to get these fancy-schmancy digital and programmable thermostats that require a master's degree in mechanical engineering to be able to use. I spent a week, armed with the instructions, trying to figure out how to override the stupid factory/energy saver settings that seemed to think that my house only needed to be 62* during the day Monday thru Friday, brought it up to 68* after 5pm, and dropped it back down to 60* for sleeping. Seriously? It was like being judged by my heating system for not having a job that took me out of the house Monday thru Friday and wanting to not be able to effing see my breath when I got up in the middle of the night to pee. Every day I reset it (or thought I did) and every day it set itself back. 62*? Come on you little piece of electrical shit, I'm IN THE HOUSE! Can I please be warm?? After fighting with and finally banging on it I figured out how to get it to do something called "temp hold." Check and mate you little bast...jerk.
Out came the wood stove, I got a kitchen remodel that included cabinets that boldly went where no cabinets had gone before (and counter tops, for $200--remind me to tell that story sometime) and we all lived happily ever after at 72*. Or so I thought.
Flash forward to three days ago. Woke up to zone 3 at 50*. Since this is the same zone where the pipes froze before, it was only logical to assume that's what happened again. The zookeeper had zookeeping stuff to do, it was my last day at my job so I had stuff to do, and the daughters were at school. So ok, we'll get to this tonight. Except we didn't for whatever reason but the rest of the house had heat. Woke up yesterday to zone 2 being down as well. Meaning the entire first floor is now without heat. And I'm gonna be home all day. This is not good. At all.
Me: "I think the thermostat in the living room is broken. Remember back in the fall I couldn't get it to do anything, then it got better?"
Him: "Maybe. I stuck a space heater near the pipes to zone three, but I gotta go. I'll deal with it later."
Me: "But wait! When will you be home?"
Him: "Not sure. Bye."
Grrrrrrrr.
By two pm I was almost in tears. It was 49* on the first floor and my fingers and toes were numb. I was bundled up in a sweater, a sweatshirt, two pairs of socks and slippers, the really thick mom jeans from the back of my drawer, and even my fleece Mrs. Roper bathrobe over it all. My hair was a static electricity rope around my face that kept trying to choke me but I didn't want to put it up since it was what was keeping my ears warm. I was worried about keeping the daughters warm when they got home from school. I had already folded all the laundry (8 baskets that seemed to be my job even though I wasn't the one who washed them and which had been hanging out in my room for a long time) and washed the dishes--the warm water was nice--and worked up a decent headache from being so cold.
By four pm, when I finally sent the zookeeper a text that he needed to drop everything and fill me in on what was going on, I was past tears, past pissy, and well on my way to a full on head spinning 360 hissy fit.
Me: "You need to call the plumber! It's freezing, and you don't know what's wrong, and how can you fix it if you don't know what's wrong!"
Him: "You need to go upstairs and be warm. Take a nap or something. Because you are miserable when you are cold."
The subtext being miserable to be around...don't make me cold. You won't like me when I'm cold.
Off I went, off he went. About an hour later we have heat to both zones. Yay zookeeper! Except it wasn't heating genius on his part but rather an accident. In fiddling with the thermostat he discovered that it runs on...wait for it...batteries. Are you seriously effing kidding me right now? I have been sitting here freezing my ass off all day, worried that the pipes were frozen, worried that we would go forever without heat, wishing for the goddamned wood stove again, and it was stupid fucking batteries? What dumbass designed this thing? Shouldn't there be some sort of battery life indicator on it, like with cell phones? Or at least a flashing screen? Something that says "hey, moron, if you want to stay warm you really oughta think about getting me some new AA's?" Unnnngggghhhh.
Have you ever had hypothermia? No? Lemme tell you about it. You know how on TV they make it look like people who froze to death just went to sleep and never woke up? No. Effing. Way. It is the absolute most painful thing you can imagine. Once, about a hundred years ago when I was young and stupid I hung out with friends who lived about an hour away from me. Since we were going out I wanted to look fashionable and opted for a sweet leather bomber jacket as outerwear. It was in the 30's and warm enough..except I didn't know that I would end up staying over because we had a bit too much fun. Who checks the weather when that happens? The trouble was that apparently the heater coil on my car had died and so there was no heat in my car. Overnight a cold spell like we've been having set in. It was like -2 and with the wind felt like -26 or something, and about 15 minutes into my hour drive I was seriously cold. At the half-way point every nerve in my entire body was screaming. Excruciating doesn't even begin to describe it. I don't think there's a word in the English language that can come close to that kind of pain. I considered stopping, but at least in the car I had a little protection from the wind. "Just get home. Just get home." It was the only thought I had as I drove the rest of the way on autopilot, rocking and moaning and crying..did I mention how much it hurt? Warming up (after passing out cold the minute I got inside my apartment) was no picnic either, which I had to do just so I could drive myself to the ER.
Needless to say, I don't like the cold. It drives me nuts to see the zookeeper running around in shorts all winter long, but hey. To each his own. I told him when we got married that his chief job was going to be to keep me warm. I think he thought I was maybe being sexy and not talking about, you know, heat...
Our house is old. I know I've said this before but it bears repeating. And non-profit really is exactly what it sounds like. So when our ancient oil-fired steam (with radiators and everything) furnace died a few years ago and the quote we got for a new heating system was $25,000 (about what we spent in heating oil every year. Ok, maybe not but New Englanders are pretty used to $600 a month in oil in the winter), we spent a couple of winters heating with a wood stove and a garage heater. I spent those winters with my ass glued to a bean bag chair in front of said wood stove kicking the tortoises out of the way and trying to see how close I could get to it without actually setting myself on fire. Two years of listening to me bitch about how cold it was was about all he could take. Trust me, it was a happy day when we (and by "we" I mean he and a friend) finally, finally ripped out the old steam pipes and replaced them with brand new forced hot water baseboard heaters and a boiler that runs on natural gas.
Heat! Blessed, beautiful heat! In every room in the house. Hallelujah. No more electric blanket. No more frozen hair products that had to be thawed to use. Most of all, no more playing Pioneer Woman, keeping the stove going and hauling in wood in the middle of a snowstorm...or stacking wood or trying to get the wood to burn or...wait, what?
Me: "Whaddaya mean we're keeping it?"
Him: "I like it. I reminds me of home."
Me (having not grown up in the middle of Maine): "But it takes up the whole fricking kitchen! And everybody trips over the hearth. And we don't need it anymore..."
Him: "I like it. And it can't hurt to have it. Save on the gas bill."
Me: "Grrrrrr."
Well, two things happened. The first was that using the wood stove immediately caused the brandy new pipes to the brandy new baseboards to freeze, because that end of the house was so warm the zone never called for heat. Oops? The second was the first month's gas bill. $11.00. I thought for sure it was some sort of mistake, but when the next month's came and it was only $12.00 I celebrated by hauling all the wood out of the wood box and back to the wood pile (do you have any idea how messy a wood box can be? All that fricking bark everywhere.) and cranking the thermostats up to 72*.
Er. Except cranking them up isn't exactly what I did. Because apparently (and over my protests at the time--they were farking expensive!) we had to get these fancy-schmancy digital and programmable thermostats that require a master's degree in mechanical engineering to be able to use. I spent a week, armed with the instructions, trying to figure out how to override the stupid factory/energy saver settings that seemed to think that my house only needed to be 62* during the day Monday thru Friday, brought it up to 68* after 5pm, and dropped it back down to 60* for sleeping. Seriously? It was like being judged by my heating system for not having a job that took me out of the house Monday thru Friday and wanting to not be able to effing see my breath when I got up in the middle of the night to pee. Every day I reset it (or thought I did) and every day it set itself back. 62*? Come on you little piece of electrical shit, I'm IN THE HOUSE! Can I please be warm?? After fighting with and finally banging on it I figured out how to get it to do something called "temp hold." Check and mate you little bast...jerk.
Out came the wood stove, I got a kitchen remodel that included cabinets that boldly went where no cabinets had gone before (and counter tops, for $200--remind me to tell that story sometime) and we all lived happily ever after at 72*. Or so I thought.
Flash forward to three days ago. Woke up to zone 3 at 50*. Since this is the same zone where the pipes froze before, it was only logical to assume that's what happened again. The zookeeper had zookeeping stuff to do, it was my last day at my job so I had stuff to do, and the daughters were at school. So ok, we'll get to this tonight. Except we didn't for whatever reason but the rest of the house had heat. Woke up yesterday to zone 2 being down as well. Meaning the entire first floor is now without heat. And I'm gonna be home all day. This is not good. At all.
Me: "I think the thermostat in the living room is broken. Remember back in the fall I couldn't get it to do anything, then it got better?"
Him: "Maybe. I stuck a space heater near the pipes to zone three, but I gotta go. I'll deal with it later."
Me: "But wait! When will you be home?"
Him: "Not sure. Bye."
Grrrrrrrr.
By two pm I was almost in tears. It was 49* on the first floor and my fingers and toes were numb. I was bundled up in a sweater, a sweatshirt, two pairs of socks and slippers, the really thick mom jeans from the back of my drawer, and even my fleece Mrs. Roper bathrobe over it all. My hair was a static electricity rope around my face that kept trying to choke me but I didn't want to put it up since it was what was keeping my ears warm. I was worried about keeping the daughters warm when they got home from school. I had already folded all the laundry (8 baskets that seemed to be my job even though I wasn't the one who washed them and which had been hanging out in my room for a long time) and washed the dishes--the warm water was nice--and worked up a decent headache from being so cold.
By four pm, when I finally sent the zookeeper a text that he needed to drop everything and fill me in on what was going on, I was past tears, past pissy, and well on my way to a full on head spinning 360 hissy fit.
Me: "You need to call the plumber! It's freezing, and you don't know what's wrong, and how can you fix it if you don't know what's wrong!"
Him: "You need to go upstairs and be warm. Take a nap or something. Because you are miserable when you are cold."
The subtext being miserable to be around...don't make me cold. You won't like me when I'm cold.
Off I went, off he went. About an hour later we have heat to both zones. Yay zookeeper! Except it wasn't heating genius on his part but rather an accident. In fiddling with the thermostat he discovered that it runs on...wait for it...batteries. Are you seriously effing kidding me right now? I have been sitting here freezing my ass off all day, worried that the pipes were frozen, worried that we would go forever without heat, wishing for the goddamned wood stove again, and it was stupid fucking batteries? What dumbass designed this thing? Shouldn't there be some sort of battery life indicator on it, like with cell phones? Or at least a flashing screen? Something that says "hey, moron, if you want to stay warm you really oughta think about getting me some new AA's?" Unnnngggghhhh.
Because really, who doesn't have these just sitting around?
All's well that ends well, I suppose. My fingers are warm enough to type, the zookeeper fulfilled his promise to love, honor, and keep me warm, and the house is slowly heating back up to a livable temperature. A piece of advice from the zookeeper's wife? Check the fricking batteries in your thermostats.
I hate being cold too! I'm with you, girl!!
ReplyDelete~Monica