Friday, February 11, 2011

Walking and Thinking and Being Grateful About It

Today I woke up to a house that was a bazillion degrees below zero because neither of us stoked up the fire overnight, on purpose.  Because neither of us likes to sleep when it is too warm anyway, and our wood pile is shrinking at an alarming rate, and we are too cheap to use oil, and it is the middle of February with still a bit to go before the warmish weather sets in.  Yikes! This is now an every day occurrence, but this morning it was slightly chillier than it has been because according to our weather station it reached -24 sometime in the middle of the night.  So this morning it was 11 degrees inside the house, it was the kind of morning where the bed is oh so nice and cosy warm, the kind of morning where it is way better to let the hubby get up and make tea.

Actually I was a bit surprised by the fact that it was that warm, considering that this house is actually a gigantic leaking bucket of heat.  You see, the palace, or a.k.a., The Shack, was actually built in the 70's and has never been upgraded.  The outside walls are 2x4 and only partially insulated, you can actually see daylight through some of the less hidden parts of the outside walls.  The roof has a little more R value if you add the mouse droppings into the calculations.  The heat ducting shouldn't really be called heat ducting, it should be called slightly tepid air ducting.  When the wind blows, which it has been doing quite a lot since we moved here, it sucks 92.7% of the heat right up the flue.  So when I talk about the state of the climate indoors I can say that the heat flew away.  (Well I could say that if I wanted to speak in bad puns.) 

Anyway.  Because the day started out chilly, and the stove didn't really start heating the place until the after...the eveni...oh who am I trying to kid, it never did get this place warm.  Because the day started out chilly I never did warm up to the idea of being out and about today, but out and about I did go.  Dog poop waits for no man, or no cold woman either.  So off we went to the back forty to run heedlessly through the snow drifts, nipping at pant legs and jumping up and down until getting whacked by a small branch of fir.  (Many times.)  For my part I did not do any of the heedless scampering into drifts, nor the nipping at pant legs, nor the jumping up and down, however I did do some...much...all of the whacking with fir. 

When I wasn't busy trying to beat the dog I was allowing my mind to wander and was suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that here I was, over six thousand kilometers away from where I had lived only six months previous, and was walking on my property, not worrying about whether or not I remembered to hand in that report.  Not worrying about staff evaluations, new purchasing systems, trying to explain concepts to people who did not give a shit.  And better yet, knowing that I wouldn't have to worry about that tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, or the next, and so on, and so on. 

So really waking up to a chilly house in the morning under my new circumstances is by and far so much better than waking up every morning to a warm house, with warm heated floors, at 4:30am, driving for an hour in the dark, getting to work and feeling like the weight of the world is crushing my spine, turning my brain into mush, and robbing me of years of my life. 

2 comments:

  1. Hm....it sounds like the programming didn't work on you. The authorities may have to be notified. Didn't you get the memo? You're supposed to have adjusted to the new reality which is that working schlubs now are supposed to resign themselves to working until they are seventy-five supporting lifestyles that are out of control and/or just managing to keep abject poverty at arms length while dealing with soring personal debt and an addiction to constantly buying new *shit* that will somehow make you happy. Not to mention yearly trips to somewhere warm because somehow that will also make you happy even if it means pnching giant holes in your credit rating.

    Just because our society is on a big-assed rocket sled to hell doesn't mean all of us have to join in the stupid. I totally hear you. All I can think when I consider my super-lucky position in the world is that of all the things that can kill me *stress* no longer has much say.

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  2. Yes so many people are grateful for the fact that mandatory retirement at 65 has been lifted. I had a woman working for me who after retiring at 65 and working there for 30 years decided to come back into the work force. She is still there and is now 69. Because, and I quote, "I am bored at home." I sure hope that if I decide to get back into the grind it won't be because of boredom, or monetary requirments.

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