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?

Dirty cars, and love

Greetings from the land of filthy cars. I've been wanting to say that ever since I started this blog, and finally remembered to do so when it was appropriate, i.e., in the middle of winter, when everyone's car is, indeed, filthy. Even if it has just snowed, which has served to give your vehicle a little bath, two minutes on the road will take care of that, as the sand put down by the public works people, and the slush produced by traffic rumbling over still-snowy roads, gets thrown up by all that passing traffic. Most people don't bother to wash their cars all winter; there doesn't seem to be a point. So here we are, the land of filthy cars.

And here's a question for you. Why, in sit-coms and romantic comedy films, does the guy always say, when asked by a third party if he loves the girl, something to the effect of "What's not to love? (or maybe "Of course I love her.") She smart, funny, beautiful..." And that's it. Those always seem to be the reasons men trot out for loving the woman in question, even though as a matter of fact real-life men rarely love a woman because she's smart or funny (beautiful, yes). They may admire her brains, and enjoy her humor, but that's not why they love her.

Nobody ever says, "Of course I love her -- or, What's not to love? -- she's sweet, kind, loving, she hasn't got a mean bone in her body, she puts up with me, I can be myself when I'm with her, she's great in bed..." In other words, nobody ever gives any of the real reasons men love women.

This shows an appalling lack of imagination or insight, or else just plain laziness, on the part of a heckuva lot of writers. Even if you want to be succinct, because the whole show has to be squeezed into 24 minutes, even if you don't want to come on too heavy, because the show is a comedy, you should be able to come up with something besides "She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful." Even "I don't know why I love her; why does anybody love anybody?" is better.

All together now...

Well, one of those quintessential Maine happenings just happened: I was sitting at my computer when I noticed out the window that overlooks my tiny front yard and the parking area for my house and the house next door (not the noisy-trucks-and-mysterious-trailer house, but the every-year-there's-somebody-new-living-there house) that one of the cars from next door seemed to be posed at the very edge of its parking space, lights blazing (it was 4:30, so dark). "Coming in or going out?" I said out loud, and then, "If it's out, that's a big mistake." Since we're in the middle of our first major snow storm of the season, that has gone on all day and actually enabled me to close the library early, and take a nice long nap this afternoon.

After about a minute I realized the fellow from next door was out there with a shovel. So, o.k., whether going or coming they were obviously having trouble getting out, or in. I hesitated about a millisecond. Not because I didn't want to help -- that's the knee jerk Maine response, perhaps even, if we give our humanity half a chance, the knee-jerk human response: the weather has got someone trapped, you go try to help. No, my hesitation was because I won-dered if, by the time I got the boots, the coat, the gloves on and got out there, he'd have already taken care of the problem. But then I went ahead and put on the boots, the coat, the gloves, grabbed the shovel on my tiny front porch and walked up the slope.

Sure enough, my as-yet-nameless neighbor's wife had been trying to pull into the space without their having cleared it first, and was now stuck, betwixt and between. Nameless, his mother or mother-in-law who lives with them, and I proceeded to push and pull and rock the vehicle (stupid SUV) back out into the street, then Nameless and I proceeded to clear the space. I couldn't have kept this up long, but with the two of us doing it it wasn't too bad. We all cheered when we stood back and Mrs. Nameless managed to pull into the narrow space (between their other SUV and their smaller car [three people, three cars; this is America]). "You may not be able to get out," I called to the dark window, "But you're in." "I'm home!" she chirped. And they all thanked me as I made my way back across my snowy yard to my house.

I'm sure similar scenarios have been repeated all over New England, and the upper Midwest, during this storm. Not only do you get a good feeling from helping someone, you get the satisfaction of overcoming a difficulty, solving a problem, and doing it with others makes it that much more satisfying. And why is that? I guess because we really are social creatures...

If you don't like the weather, wait a minute...

Definitely freaky weather. On Thursday it got up to 64 degrees here in mid-central Maine, breaking the former record of 55 degrees for Dec. 3rd. People were coming into the library exclaiming "It's like spring out there!"

The heretofore unknown Jennifer Sporzynski of Portland made herself famous, at least for 15 minutes, with her quote, issued to a reporter while sitting on a park bench in the sun: "It's not right. It's December. It's supposed to be snowing. I like warm weather," she went on to say," but not in December."

While I think most Mainers were delighted with the balmy day (which developed only after an early morning of high winds and rain), we all knew it was weird.

So today Jennifer, and the rest of us, got your more typical Maine-in-December weather. It was overcast and distinctly nippy this morning when I went out to mail some Christmas cards, and buy some more. Then late this afternoon as I was making my second trip to the post office in Augusta to mail cards (I have friends who celebrate Hanukkah, rather than Christmas, and friends overseas, so those cards needed to go out), I suddenly saw what looked like snow rushing at my vehicle, illuminated by the headlights. The forecast had said possibility of rain or snow, and this stuff had too much substance to be rain.

Well, I couldn't complain. Except for that mini snow storm we had a month ago, on Nov. 6th (see Note of Nov. 8), we have had no snow at all; indeed, for much of November it was unusually mild. Friends and family living in the south would say, are you freezing yet, and I would have to say no, indeed, it's usually been in the upper 40s, even in the 50s. But I just got up from one of those two-hour naps that are one of my luxuries on a weekend (and generally result in my then being able to sit at the computer writing until one o'clock in the morning), and when I passed the kitchen window whose blinds I keep cracked so that I can see the light in my next-door neighbors windows, so I won't feel so cut off from the world, I noticed that the ground was white. I then lifted the curtain of the other kitchen window, which gives a view of my large back yard, and sure enough, winter had arrived. Not with a vengeance -- my guess is there isn't more than an inch -- but I just checked the weather, and we could get 2-4 inches overnight. Hello, winter.

Although, with global warming, you never know.

The New Year...

...begins with cold and wind, here in northern New England. When I got up this morning it was -1 degrees; with the wind chill factor, -20. This was according to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Weather Service. I listen to their reports every morning on the little weather radio Micheal got when he was working offshore, and wanted to stay abreast of weather conditions on the Gulf.

It’s now 12:45 in the afternoon, the sun is shining brightly, and it’s all of 8 degrees. Earlier, when I was lying in bed having my post-breakfast rest (preparing, and eating, pancakes, sausage, an egg, hot tea, and half an orange takes it out of you) I was listening to the wind, trying to decide what it sounded like. A low, steady roar, maybe like the traffic sounds people who live close to a busy, major highway grow accustomed to. Or a huge machine that runs all the time in the next building. No whistling, no howling. And it didn’t sound like the wind on Mull, which I would often listen to in the same way. That wind came in waves, off the sea, in deep thrumms. Thrumm...thrumm...thrummm.

I was very glad to be snug and warm in my little house. Admittedly, keeping warm, even indoors, involves wearing several layers of clothing, beginning with long johns, top and bottom. After all, you don't want the furnace running constantly! Am very glad I don’t have to go out today, having stocked up on food yesterday morning, on my way to work. It was supposed to snow later in the day, and I preferred not to have to stop off at the grocery in the middle of a snow storm. (In Maine so often ones activities are determined by the weather forecast.)

I just read that thirty minutes of shoveling snow burns 238 calories, the same as thirty minutes of high impact aerobics. Two weekends ago when we had our first major snowstorm, I spent close to an hour shoveling snow, with a thirty minute break in the middle because I felt spent (but the fellows I called to come finish the job for me hadn’t shown up, at the end of that half hour, and I’d gotten my wind back, so I went out and finished the job myself). It’s back-breaking work, especially given my current parking situation. More cars park in the little parking area in front of my house than was the case last year – more people living in the house next door than there were last year – so I have no place to put the snow. I have to walk each shovel-load either back to dump it in my yard, or across the street, to dump it on the piled-up snow over there. And this lady, as we all now know, is no spring chicken.

But hey, it’s burning as many calories as ice skating!