Monday, December 10, 2007

weather freakout

Long ago, I lived in this little tiny house about 10 miles from where I work. I loved the house and I loved living there. There were only two problems: the only heat in the whole house was a wall furnace in the kitchen, and the two winters I lived there were two of the coldest, snowiest winters I can remember.

I thought of it as an adventure at the time, but it's left me with this sort of sub-hysterical thing about keeping warm. It's why I insist on wool and, when I can get it, alpaca and chiengora and other extremely warm natural fibers, silk underwear, silk/wool blend underwear, silk/wool glove and sock liners, flannel-lined jeans, wool blankets... you get the idea. Also a full pantry for me and my animals. And flashlights. And fireplaces (in my next house...).

So today they've been forecasting doom and gloom here--inch-thick ice, fallen trees and power wires, extended electrical outages, more ice tomorrow. I've been looking at the weather radar, and am completely freaked.

It'll probably miss us--but then again, it might not. And I don't have enough batteries, or any way to heat anything to eat/drink, or to keep warm--except for the Ts, and blankies, and a few of those air-activated toe and hand warmers. I'm wondering if I should turn the furnace all the way up and get it really hot in here, so it'll stay sort of semi-warm for a couple of days...

At least my new mp3 player also has FM radio, so I can listen to the radio and see what's going on. I better make sure the cell phone's charged, too, I guess. And okay, my flashlight takes D batteries, so I can cannibalize them from my portable radio, plus I've got a couple still in a package (and hopefully they're still fresh). So I won't be completely in the dark and cut off from everything. And I'll be able to flush (when we used to lose power at my folks' house, you couldn't flush because we had a well--no power, no pump, no flush). And I bought groceries last Thursday, so we're okay foodwise for a few days, anyway.

Breathe, Judi.

And I swear, I'm going to order a battery-powered lamp and a candle-cooker NOW so I don't have to get so freaked the next time this happens. Because it will, thanks to global warming.

I hope we don't get all that ice.

1 comment:

Monika said...

Yeah Ice sucks. We had warmer temps the last days, and now everything has icicles on them, the steps where they drip down are full of ice, and there's ice rain in the forecast. I love snow, but this is dangerous. Wish you a warm house and no troubles throughout these days!Keep safe, keep warm, hug the T's! :o)