The old gray mare she ain't what she used to be

We have had three days of very cold and windy weather, here in central Maine.  Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Sunday night it was a matter of “gale force winds,” as they say, up to 51 miles an hour in nearby Augusta.   Even today, though it has been sunny (Saturday and Sunday It was overcast, and on again off again snow) it has remained cold and windy.  A number of the windows in my house have improperly-fitting storm windows, that have rumbled mournfully; and at times the house has even shaken.  I’ve been very glad that I went out early Saturday morning and stocked up on groceries, so that I didn’t have to go out at all yesterday or today.  (It’s been a three day weekend – God’s gift to the working stiff – which is why I didn’t have to venture out to work today.)

However.  I’ve been cold.  My little house appears to have virtually no insulation; it only feels warm while the furnace is running.  And I had checked the oil tank on Saturday, and was dismayed to see that the indicator hovered just above 1/8 full.  I had oil delivered less than a month ago, and while I didn’t have it filled (no way I could afford to have it filled), I would have expected the 100 gallons that were delivered to last longer than this.  So I was trying to be frugal Saturday and Sunday, not pushing the thermostat too high, wearing my wool leggings under my jeans, and two sweaters on the top half of me, in an effort to keep warm.  I was hoping to be able to avoid calling for more oil until Thursday (the company delivers to Gardiner on Mondays and Thursdays), but by last night I knew this was unrealistic.  A Starving Librarian I might be, but it was ridiculous to be freezing in my own home, when I wasn’t living in Afghanistan, or on welfare in this country.  

So early this morning I called Augusta Fuel, and ordered 200 gallons.  And since it was delivered I haven’t hesitated to turn the thermostat up.

But here’s the thing.  It seems to me that in general I am feeling the cold more than I used to.  It’s always been an obvious chilly in this house, in the wintertime, but I don’t recall being made as uncomfortable as I’ve been this winter.  I have two sets of friends who, years ago, fled the cold and snow of the Northeast for balmy California.  But I have always felt comfortable with both cold and snow, and have had no desire whatsoever to relocate to more temperate climes. But in the last couple of years serious, heavy-duty snow-shoveling has simply gotten beyond me – thank the gods for the rather creepy young man who knocked on my door one day last year and offered to dig me out; he has continued to do so, at $10 a whack – and now I’m finding the cold harder to deal with.  The Aging Body Syndrome, asserting itself in a new and exciting way?   Malta, here I come?