winter

Snow, It won’t be long before we’ll all be there with snow. SnowI wanna wash my hands, my face, and hair with snow. SnowI long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow. Oh to see a great big man entirely made of snow.

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

The official weather report from tonight on Channel 6 says that Cape Elizabeth got 14” of snow on Sunday and Monday.  That’s a lot for one storm, even for us.  Although, the most we’ve had since we’ve lived in Maine is just shy of 32” in one storm.  That was intense.  

I really don’t mind the snow.  Especially now that we live in Maine.  For the most part, the cities we live in are excellent at snow removal.  Our street has a thin layer of snow packed on it, but the main roads are all clear, less than 24 hours later.   

You do have to be careful walking around town, as someone at some point decided that brick sidewalks were cool.  They are pretty.  But they are horrible to walk on when they are wet.  They are even worse in the snow.  I highly recommend not having brick sidewalks.  

I also don’t mind the cold.  In fact, I never wear a coat.  It’s in the car just in case I’m in an accident or have car trouble, but I always leave it there.  I did use it a couple of weeks ago, when I knew I had to walk about 10 blocks from the restaurant we were eating at, to the music venue we were going to.  But even then, I took it off the minute I got into the car.  

However.  

With all the photos online of the expansive snow storm, there have been a lot of pictures of sledding.  I haven’t been sledding since 1993.  It’s one of those weird things I know, simply because there is photographic evidence of it. 

There was a huge snowstorm that closed the University of Kentucky campus for the day.   At least five or six of the tech students ended up in the show and we made makeshift sleds.  I can’t remember if we were using plastic, cardboard or metal.  What I do know is that it was great for sledding.  

We hit the hills outside of the theater building.  Fun was had by all.  

I was wearing my big red winter coat that I loved.  And my boyfriend, Sam and I were taking turns going down the hill.  At one point, we went down the hill together, and unbeknownst to us a photographer from the Lexington Herald-Leader took a photo of us. 

The next day we were in the paper.  

We were newspaper famous the next day, as we all got back to our regularly scheduled programming.  

Also, unbeknownst to me, Sam had reached out the newspaper and gotten a copy of the photo.  For my birthday, the next month, I got the framed photo of us sledding on campus.  It’s been displayed prominently; in every apartment I’ve had since. 

I’m way too old to go sledding now.  I’d end up breaking a hip and you know what they say.  But, the photo is a reminder here in Maine that I don’t mind the winter.  We put up with the intense cold and snow so that we can have the most beautiful summers and falls anyone as ever seen.  

I got ssssteam heat, but I need your love to keep away the cold

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

It’s currently 6* in Portland.  That’s very cold.  Even for us. 

I talk about Maine winters a lot.  And while yes, they’re long and cold.  It’s not ridiculously cold like it is in the Midwest.  And thanks to climate change, we get a lot less snow than we used to, although this weekend is going to challenge that statistic.  

And, even though we don’t get as much snow as we used to, the city and state, are well versed in snow removal.  The snow will start Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning, the roads should be drivable, if not clear depending on when the snow stops.  Within 24 of a total stop, the highways and main roads will look as though the snow never happened.  

That being said, it’s still cold.  Very cold. 

Adam and I are lucky that we live in a fairly warm house, and we have the ability to set the thermostat on a temperature than can be comfortable for both of us.  That has not always been the case for either of us.  

In NYC, the heat comes on in October and goes off in April.  And it’s set at a constant temperature of just a few degrees cooler than that sun.  Old school radiator heat, that is for the most part either on or off.  If it’s on, you are sweating the moment you walk into the house.  Off is a little trickier.  If the valve works you can turn off the radiator, but you chance it never coming back on again.  Thus, your heat is on, your windows are open, and the a/c is running in the middle of January.  

Growing up, we lived in an old farm house, heated by a fuel oil stove in the dining room and a wood stove in the living room.  It was either cold, or slightly more cold, depending on the weather.  I always said, that when I was an adult, I’d never be hot in the summer or cold in the winter and we are lucky that that is true now.  

My favorite thermostat story, is when I lived in Lexington, going to school at UK.  My boyfriend and I rented the downstairs of an old four-square house.  It was beautiful, with tall ceilings, hardwood floors and lots of windows.  Beautiful, but very cold.  It was always freezing.  

To make matters worse the landlord had locked the thermostat so that we couldn’t adjust the heat.  We suffered through this for about a month, when my boyfriend came up with a solution.  We took the freezable plastic blocks that you use in a cooler instead of ice, and put them in a plastic grocery bag.  We then nailed the bag so that it would hang on top of the thermostat.  Instant heat.  

I lived there two winters and we did this the whole time.  Not a perfect solution but a work around all the same.  

Another fun story about that house, was that it had three separate apartments in the house.  One on the first floor, one on the second floor and another on the third floor.  However, the basement is where all the utilities were, including heat, hot water and electric breakers.  

At the beginning of our second year, we got new upstairs neighbors.  And from day one, they had parties, late into the night every Thursday.  The first couple of times we asked them to be a little quieter and they basically just ignored us.  We were about a month into the school year, when I’d had enough.  

During the next late-night party, I went downstairs to the basement, and turned off the breakers to their apartment.  The music and noise stopped.  I went back upstairs to bed.  When my alarm went off at 8:00, I returned their power.  It only took doing this two times, for the Thursday night parties to stop. 

They never complained and I started being able to sleep.  

I have so many wonderful stories about the house on Stone Avenue.  But those will have to wait for another day.