Heat, Blessed Heat!
I finally bit the bullet and bought fuel oil yesterday. Thank God for President Bush and his war in Iraq: the oil revenues have paid for the war itself, made record profits for our country, and have led directly to a steep decline in the price of gas.
Oh, wait, wrong universe. What I meant to say was that $241.00 bought me only 100 gallons of oil, and that prices at the pump are on the way back up (as Richard says, “Yep, the election is over”). It was $2.369 at the Sunoco at 45th and Baltimore for a gallon of regular.
Maybe it’s my New England upbringing, but I have never been fully comfortable with these mid-Atlantic winters, which seem to get shorter each year. I moved here from Western Massachusetts, where it starts to get nippy enough to need a jacket by late September, and the snow falls pretty much non-stop from November through May. You heard me: MAY. So while over the long term I loathe the cold, I confess an appreciation for that crispness in the air, that clairty that only comes when the mercury drops below 40 degrees. Everything seems to be sharper, the buildings stand out starkly against the pale blue of the sky, and the air tastes like frozen smoke.
That appreciation lasts until my toes start to go numb: then all bets are off, and the only thing I want to hear is the WOOOSH of the oil burner lighting up, and the gurgle of radiators filled with hot water.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:30 am
Ohhhhhhh…….I remember the cold………ohhhhhhhhhhhh…..
…….the cold. Not just cold, but ultra-fucking cold.