OT - Story - In Praise of Central Heat

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "That Kathy is a few sandwiches
short of a picnic on this one!" If you're feeling especially kind and
sympathetic, you'll think "Oh that poor girl! The pain has finally
gotten to her for good."

In reality, it's neither. I have just returned from a little
unplanned stair climbing expedition. Most of the time, Bob lets
Sophie out for her morning constitutional, which he hates. I know
this because he curses from the moment he wakes up until he and the
little dog return to their respective beds. This morning, I awoke to
Bob attempting to get Sophie out of her bed with no success. The
little dog opened one eye, gave Bob a look that is more commonly
associated with one given to drivers that cut you off, and went back
to her snoring and doggie dreams of catching squirrels.

"Fine, the heck with you. See if I care. Explode if you want." Bob
mumbled darkly, as he tromped down the hallway to take his shower.

Predictably, there was a small dog pressing her icy cold nose on my
elbow a nanosecond after the bathroom door shut. The same dog who
couldn't be bothered to move a minute before now had to go out *NOW,*
or we would all suffer dire consequences. Not particularly happy to
get out of my warm bed, I muttered a few syllables of basic English
to the small dog and made my way downstairs.

It takes me a while to get down the stairs, but Sophie's whining and
snorting encouraged me to go as quickly as I could. As I opened the
back door, she shoved right by my legs, seemingly frantic for relief.
Once she hit the back porch, she stopped, sniffing the air as if it
were a fine wine and regally surveying her small kingdom. (Also known
as the back yard)

I looked at the backyard thermometer: 27 degrees or a couple below
zero for those living outside the US. I decide I like Celcius better
to describe winter weather, and Fahrenheit better in the summer.
Hearing it's 27 degrees in August, when I'm a lump of melted Kathy
just doesn't seem fair, and I always feel like a pioneer when I go
outdoors at -2 without a jacket. Anyway, it's cold. Maybe not cold
enough to get frostbite standing on the back porch, and definitely
beach weather to Tina, but I'm not happy standing there shivering
while Sophie explores every nook and cranny in the snow covering her
kingdom. Finally, she does what she came out to do and returns to
the house.

Teeth chattering, I use my arms to pull me up the stairs, using my
right leg for most of the work, and my left one as a rudder. I
nearly land on my butt as a small dog decides that weaving in and out
of my legs is a good idea, because now she's in a hurry for
breakfast. I tell her to wait a darned moment, as I see my breath in
the back stairwell.

My Opa would like my back stairwell. Although technically indoors,
it has no heat or windows, and whatever temperature it outdoors, it's
close to that temperature in the back stairwell. Oddly, the front
stairwell has heat, which is silly because no one uses the front
stairwell. Shivering and out of breath at the same time, I make it
back into our house and plop into the nearest chair.

Boy Howdy, am I cold! Standing on the back porch in a nightshirt is
not at all comfortable, and I give the small dog evil looks as she
nudges her breakfast dish to hurry me along. She can just wait until
I've warmed up. So there. Not that it matters to Sophie - she just
finds the nearest dog bed and plops herself down, asleep before my
next breath.

I sit in my chair, panting, and start to warm up. I can smell the
"heat smell," so common to old houses; the smell of steam coming up
through old pipes and escaping through the valves of century old cast
iron radiators. It's a very distinctive scent, one that causes me to
accuse various family members of "messing with the thermostat" every
October, because of my oft-stated and written-in-stone rule, "the
heat stays off until November 1, unless it snows."

The various radiators clank and hiss in a manner that always startles
those visitors who have the misfortune to live in new houses. You
know, those houses where heat is silent, instant and goes unnoticed.
In my house, you know that you're getting heat, that the house is
working hard to get you warm, and that it's going to take a few
minutes. Thank you, house.

My grandparents' home doesn't have radiators, even though it was
built in the 1950's. Each room has a wood stove, big ceramic affairs
that make my cast iron behemoths of radiators look streamlined and
unobtrusive. The stoves are lovingly fed by Opa, who chops, splits
and seasons wood as he has done for nearly a century.

My Tantes and Onkels have been begging my grandparents to install
central heat, because they would rather not have their very elderly
father hauling wood and lighting fires in stoves. Their begging has
become as much of a tradition as my "no heat before November first"
rant, and just as effective. Whenever the subject is brought up, Opa
demands to know why one would ever want to heat a room that they
weren't in at that moment. "I'm in the kitchen, and the kitchen is
warm. If I want to watch television, I'll light a fire in the living
room stove, and then that room will be warm. What do I care if the
bedroom is warm? I'm not in the bedroom!"

He has a point, except for two things: the bathroom is cold enough
to freeze your butt to the seat (no reading the newspaper in there!),
and getting hot water is a chore. If you want to take a bath (no
shower available, thank you very much, you sissy!), you go down to
the woodshed and fill the "bathroom wood basket." Then you light a
little fire in the water heater, in theory. In real life, you burn
your fingers lighting eleventy-seven matches, make no progress in
getting the kindling going, and eventually Oma starts the little
fire.

I always feel like a wimp at times like that, knowing that I'd freeze
and die on "Survivor," because I can't even manage a little fire with
matches and perfectly seasoned kindling at the ready. Oma smiles as
she lights the fire in about thirty seconds with one match. A half
hour later, you can take your bath, because there's hot water - a
whole bath's worth. If someone else wants a bath, the whole procedure
starts again. (There's a good reason that my grandparents'
generation only took a bath on Saturday night)

About twenty years ago, the heat argument reached its height, with my
Onkels installing central heat, electric and available at the touch
of a button. They also installed point-of-service heaters in the
kitchen and bathroom, cool little boxes which heat the water as you
need it, instead of having a big old tank of hot water wasting energy
in the basement. The little water heaters are still there, doing a
yeoman job of providing water for dishwashing and a daily sponge bath
(the wood stove bathtub heater is still there), but the central heat
didn't last long.

Several months after the central heat was installed, Oma and Opa's
basement flooded. Supposedly, the heater was ruined (although I
can't see how it would be, as it was on the second floor), and Opa
pulled the whole thing out. "Having heat in all those rooms is
unhealthy anyhow," he muttered darkly, with Oma silently nodding
along in agreement. My Tantes and Onkels, realizing that this was a
battle they would never win, wisely gave up.

But I have heat in every room, and now I'm warm and comfortable. The
radiators are finished doing their thing for the moment, and now only
let out the occasional clank or hiss of steam. If I want to take a
shower, I need not plan ahead, but can simply turn a dial, and the
hot water genie sends as much as I need to the bathtub, no matches
necessary. I am grateful and happy to have heat, "even in rooms where
I don't need it."

Still genetics are a funny thing, because a little of Opa's attitude
has filtered down to me. I'm certainly not going to rip out the
furnace, and I would have to look long and hard for a book of
matches. (and I've just confessed my dismal fire-starting abilities)
But I know that I've got a little of that Opa DNA going on in there
because I keep the house at a very chilly fifty-something degrees,
and turn on a little space heater in my den when I'm home alone.

No sense heating the whole darned house if I'm only in one room.

Kathy N-V

The stories of your oma and opa give me more than a touch of nostalgia. You
are describing my own grandparents and my life as a teen in '70's Australia
complete with wood stoves, copper in the laundry, huge vegetable garden,
chickens in the back yard, wood shed and a post war sense of economics, "If
it still works, you don't replace it and if it's broken, you fix it." My
oma and opa migrated their life and culture to Australia and I was fortunate
enough to experience it first hand. Or not so fortunate if you knew the
state of my back today - lifting sodden clothes from a boiling copper and
chopping wood is hard work.

--
Marisa (AU/NZ)
www.galleryvittoria.com
"She who dies with the biggest stash, wins."

One of the expenditures Pete insisted on after we married we a wood stove.
He wanted Vermont soapstone, instead we got cast iron from Maine. Having
done my time with wood heating, I was not crazy about spending the several
thousand dollars for it. But, you know, there's just no other feeling as
the heat from a wood stove. Especially if the reason the house is cooling
is that the electric is out, and the heater isn't working.

Tina


"Kathy N-V" wrote in message
. giganews.com...
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "That Kathy is a few sandwiches
short of a picnic on this one!" If you're feeling especially kind and
sympathetic, you'll think "Oh that poor girl! The pain has finally
gotten to her for good."

In reality, it's neither. I have just returned from a little
unplanned stair climbing expedition. Most of the time, Bob lets
Sophie out for her morning constitutional, which he hates. I know
this because he curses from the moment he wakes up until he and the
little dog return to their respective beds. This morning, I awoke to
Bob attempting to get Sophie out of her bed with no success. The
little dog opened one eye, gave Bob a look that is more commonly
associated with one given to drivers that cut you off, and went back
to her snoring and doggie dreams of catching squirrels.

"Fine, the heck with you. See if I care. Explode if you want." Bob
mumbled darkly, as he tromped down the hallway to take his shower.

Predictably, there was a small dog pressing her icy cold nose on my
elbow a nanosecond after the bathroom door shut. The same dog who
couldn't be bothered to move a minute before now had to go out *NOW,*
or we would all suffer dire consequences. Not particularly happy to
get out of my warm bed, I muttered a few syllables of basic English
to the small dog and made my way downstairs.

It takes me a while to get down the stairs, but Sophie's whining and
snorting encouraged me to go as quickly as I could. As I opened the
back door, she shoved right by my legs, seemingly frantic for relief.
Once she hit the back porch, she stopped, sniffing the air as if it
were a fine wine and regally surveying her small kingdom. (Also known
as the back yard)

I looked at the backyard thermometer: 27 degrees or a couple below
zero for those living outside the US. I decide I like Celcius better
to describe winter weather, and Fahrenheit better in the summer.
Hearing it's 27 degrees in August, when I'm a lump of melted Kathy
just doesn't seem fair, and I always feel like a pioneer when I go
outdoors at -2 without a jacket. Anyway, it's cold. Maybe not cold
enough to get frostbite standing on the back porch, and definitely
beach weather to Tina, but I'm not happy standing there shivering
while Sophie explores every nook and cranny in the snow covering her
kingdom. Finally, she does what she came out to do and returns to
the house.

Teeth chattering, I use my arms to pull me up the stairs, using my
right leg for most of the work, and my left one as a rudder. I
nearly land on my butt as a small dog decides that weaving in and out
of my legs is a good idea, because now she's in a hurry for
breakfast. I tell her to wait a darned moment, as I see my breath in
the back stairwell.

My Opa would like my back stairwell. Although technically indoors,
it has no heat or windows, and whatever temperature it outdoors, it's
close to that temperature in the back stairwell. Oddly, the front
stairwell has heat, which is silly because no one uses the front
stairwell. Shivering and out of breath at the same time, I make it
back into our house and plop into the nearest chair.

Boy Howdy, am I cold! Standing on the back porch in a nightshirt is
not at all comfortable, and I give the small dog evil looks as she
nudges her breakfast dish to hurry me along. She can just wait until
I've warmed up. So there. Not that it matters to Sophie - she just
finds the nearest dog bed and plops herself down, asleep before my
next breath.

I sit in my chair, panting, and start to warm up. I can smell the
"heat smell," so common to old houses; the smell of steam coming up
through old pipes and escaping through the valves of century old cast
iron radiators. It's a very distinctive scent, one that causes me to
accuse various family members of "messing with the thermostat" every
October, because of my oft-stated and written-in-stone rule, "the
heat stays off until November 1, unless it snows."

The various radiators clank and hiss in a manner that always startles
those visitors who have the misfortune to live in new houses. You
know, those houses where heat is silent, instant and goes unnoticed.
In my house, you know that you're getting heat, that the house is
working hard to get you warm, and that it's going to take a few
minutes. Thank you, house.

My grandparents' home doesn't have radiators, even though it was
built in the 1950's. Each room has a wood stove, big ceramic affairs
that make my cast iron behemoths of radiators look streamlined and
unobtrusive. The stoves are lovingly fed by Opa, who chops, splits
and seasons wood as he has done for nearly a century.

My Tantes and Onkels have been begging my grandparents to install
central heat, because they would rather not have their very elderly
father hauling wood and lighting fires in stoves. Their begging has
become as much of a tradition as my "no heat before November first"
rant, and just as effective. Whenever the subject is brought up, Opa
demands to know why one would ever want to heat a room that they
weren't in at that moment. "I'm in the kitchen, and the kitchen is
warm. If I want to watch television, I'll light a fire in the living
room stove, and then that room will be warm. What do I care if the
bedroom is warm? I'm not in the bedroom!"

He has a point, except for two things: the bathroom is cold enough
to freeze your butt to the seat (no reading the newspaper in there!),
and getting hot water is a chore. If you want to take a bath (no
shower available, thank you very much, you sissy!), you go down to
the woodshed and fill the "bathroom wood basket." Then you light a
little fire in the water heater, in theory. In real life, you burn
your fingers lighting eleventy-seven matches, make no progress in
getting the kindling going, and eventually Oma starts the little
fire.

I always feel like a wimp at times like that, knowing that I'd freeze
and die on "Survivor," because I can't even manage a little fire with
matches and perfectly seasoned kindling at the ready. Oma smiles as
she lights the fire in about thirty seconds with one match. A half
hour later, you can take your bath, because there's hot water - a
whole bath's worth. If someone else wants a bath, the whole procedure
starts again. (There's a good reason that my grandparents'
generation only took a bath on Saturday night)

About twenty years ago, the heat argument reached its height, with my
Onkels installing central heat, electric and available at the touch
of a button. They also installed point-of-service heaters in the
kitchen and bathroom, cool little boxes which heat the water as you
need it, instead of having a big old tank of hot water wasting energy
in the basement. The little water heaters are still there, doing a
yeoman job of providing water for dishwashing and a daily sponge bath
(the wood stove bathtub heater is still there), but the central heat
didn't last long.

Several months after the central heat was installed, Oma and Opa's
basement flooded. Supposedly, the heater was ruined (although I
can't see how it would be, as it was on the second floor), and Opa
pulled the whole thing out. "Having heat in all those rooms is
unhealthy anyhow," he muttered darkly, with Oma silently nodding
along in agreement. My Tantes and Onkels, realizing that this was a
battle they would never win, wisely gave up.

But I have heat in every room, and now I'm warm and comfortable. The
radiators are finished doing their thing for the moment, and now only
let out the occasional clank or hiss of steam. If I want to take a
shower, I need not plan ahead, but can simply turn a dial, and the
hot water genie sends as much as I need to the bathtub, no matches
necessary. I am grateful and happy to have heat, "even in rooms where
I don't need it."

Still genetics are a funny thing, because a little of Opa's attitude
has filtered down to me. I'm certainly not going to rip out the
furnace, and I would have to look long and hard for a book of
matches. (and I've just confessed my dismal fire-starting abilities)
But I know that I've got a little of that Opa DNA going on in there
because I keep the house at a very chilly fifty-something degrees,
and turn on a little space heater in my den when I'm home alone.

No sense heating the whole darned house if I'm only in one room.

Kathy N-V

Christina Peterson wrote:
thousand dollars for it. But, you know, there's just no other feeling as
the heat from a wood stove. Especially if the reason the house is cooling

I think one of things I miss most about moving away from Lake Tahoe was
the whole indescribable feeling when we had the wood stove going and
looking out the big windows at nothing but deep snow and pines. }sigh{
Sometimes the wood stove never got cold for weeks it seemed. Ok... so I
miss my ex more... but this time of year was the best.

Here its rainy, muddy and 50 degrees... not pretty.

PS
=====
Having to use the AC in Jan. should be against the law...

vj wrote:
well, last weekend they got NINE FEET IN THREE DAYS.
this weekend, they're getting SIX FEET MORE!!!!

ohhhhhhh... We lived (he still does) on one of the hills about 800-1000
ft. above the lake so he may be getting even more than that!!! Ron (the
ex) LOVED keeping the sidewalks and driveway clean but never would admit
it! Now he has a snowblower and I think it has spoiled his fun! He even
used to keep a space to and around the bar-b-que pit clean so he could
still que

Its easy to sigh and miss it when I'm not there IN it!

PS
=====
really miss that guy... he really knew how to use a snow shovel!!!

I moved here, Fairbanks, from So Lake Tahoe in 87, Love it there. Oddly,
it has super high snow falls, and yet has one of the sunniest climates
anywhere. Even in winter, it snows and then there's the sun and blue (deep,
high altitude blue) skies. I love Lake Tahoe.

When I was a little girl, the family went up there to ski in the early 50s.
It was one of the heaviest years for snow, the highways were closed and
Tahoe was isolated for about 5 months, Emerald Bay for about 8 months. I
remember that my dad took the oldest 2 children to safety then came back for
mom and us other 3. By then the snow was just inches from the top of the
car, almost covering the window. And cars were pretty tall back then. We
finally got out. That evening the store or garage (don't remember) where we
sheltered was demolished by an avalanche; and the man who had saved the
lives of many people on the roads, was killed.

I've been there when it snowed 6 or 8 feet in a couple days.

Tina


"Polly Stewart" wrote in message
...
vj wrote:
well, last weekend they got NINE FEET IN THREE DAYS.
this weekend, they're getting SIX FEET MORE!!!!

ohhhhhhh... We lived (he still does) on one of the hills about 800-1000
ft. above the lake so he may be getting even more than that!!! Ron (the
ex) LOVED keeping the sidewalks and driveway clean but never would admit
it! Now he has a snowblower and I think it has spoiled his fun! He even
used to keep a space to and around the bar-b-que pit clean so he could
still que

Its easy to sigh and miss it when I'm not there IN it!

PS
=====
really miss that guy... he really knew how to use a snow shovel!!!

Christina Peterson wrote:
I moved here, Fairbanks, from So Lake Tahoe in 87, Love it there. Oddly,
it has super high snow falls, and yet has one of the sunniest climates
anywhere. Even in winter, it snows and then there's the sun and blue (deep,
high altitude blue) skies. I love Lake Tahoe.

And it is so dry that even with the deepest snow it never seemed brutal.
I miss it so much, especially this time of year. I heard something on
the news about this weekend bringing the deepest snow since one winter
in the 50's... maybe the year you were there.

When I was a little girl, the family went up there to ski in the early 50s.
It was one of the heaviest years for snow, the highways were closed and
Tahoe was isolated for about 5 months, Emerald Bay for about 8 months. I

Emerald Bay... one of the most beautiful spots in that area... I don't
know if you remember the tiny road going around the lake... well they've
built kazillion dollar homes at the end of that road (going up to Eagle
Falls) and I dread to think what the giant SUVs are doing to the old
road and the people that live there. (nothing against SUVs but they
needed a different way in...not on the old, winding road)

remember that my dad took the oldest 2 children to safety then came back for
mom and us other 3. By then the snow was just inches from the top of the
car, almost covering the window. And cars were pretty tall back then. We
finally got out. That evening the store or garage (don't remember) where we
sheltered was demolished by an avalanche; and the man who had saved the
lives of many people on the roads, was killed.

Whoa... that must have been terrifying. Yet you still love Tahoe!

My son, on his first day there, commented that where ever you looked it
was a postcard picture. Born and raised in SW Louisiana where everything
is FLAT and he fell in love with Tahoe, took to the mountains and winter
like a fish to water!!!


Polly
=====
I'm really still there... I just happen to live somewhere else!

Haw! I remember a trip I took up to Truckee one year around Christmas.
Mercury was out on the deck, in the snow, in 17 F degree weather. The
snow was slowly covering him. He refused to come indoors.....he LOVED
it. He hasn't changed much since then, either.