Cold Comfort: Evaluating My Thermal Clothing for Inside the House
Even ten years ago if anyone had told me that I'd be seriously evaluating thermal underwear for use daily inside my house, I'd doubtless have replied, "Not likely!"
A friend recently said that old age is full of surprises; planning is for the young. He got that right!
For what seemed at the time, and still seems, a perfectly logical reason I decided to grit my teeth (both literally and figuratively) and move. Not just down the block, or even just to another street — but to another state. More accurately, to move back to a state where I'd spent most of my adult life. Unfortunately, this meant leaving "the Deep South" and returning to southern New England. Right about now it feels like the southern Arctic.
Penguin Press Book cover
Not since the seventies have I seen so much snow. Here in my retirement community, I'm allowed to keep my dog. Unfortunately, clearing space for him in nineteen inches of snow is not one of the services provided. I'm good for about half an hour of tossing snow by the shovel-full over the banks created by previous attempts to uncover some ground for my fairly small terrier to use for necessary purposes. The alternative is to shovel my way out of the kitchen and hope there's enough plowed road to walk him on. He was literally up to his belly yesterday till I shoveled space, and couldn't even lift his leg above the white stuff.
In the meantime, the local utility company has changed its name (What does that have to do with anything? You ask) and simultaneously raised the basic rate for everyone it serves. Just imagine all the new letterhead, billheads, uniforms, vehicle painting involved. How else would they pay for it? I haven't a clue what the lawyers get out of such a maneuver. I'm probably just silly because I don't know why this change was made, unless it might have been to get permission from the state utility overseers for higher rates.
They even have the gall to send out wrist-slapping notices accusing me of using X% more electricity than my neighbors and suggesting we contact them for information on how to conserve. Two rooms in my house are completely shut off with no heat called for on the weird controls, of which there is one in every room. When I'm not in a room (like the bedroom from the time I finish dressing until the next morning at the same time), I keep those controls set to 60 degrees F. I reset each thermostat in the rooms I go in and out of during the day at 68 maximum. The heat is provided by electricity.
I wonder about the "neighbors." Every cottage in the community is heated by electricity. I doubt many are cooler than mine. So here I sit in thermal underwear — top and bottom — heavy sweat pants, fleece-lined booties, and two sweaters (one hand-knit of heavy yarn), with my hands barely warm enough to type. Even colder temps are due overnight, if that's possible.
It was zero degrees this morning and more low temps are expected. A check of the outdoor temperature in the place I left a year and a half ago shows it to be 54. I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with this picture ...
©2015 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com
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