foreground makes the heat more soothing

The weather was balmy when we returned from the APA, and a tepid rain had washed away all the snow. Still, the major battle over the last few days has been with the cold.

Shortly after we got in the house on Friday and turned the heat back up, the furnace broke. I fussed with the things I knew how to fuss with, and then called the repair people. The repair people said that it would be Monday before they could even check on the availability of the parts we needed, and asked if we had an alternative source of heat.

"I guess we can buy space heaters," I said.

"Well, fortunately the weather is fairly balmy," they replied

So now we heat the first floor with one large Kerosene heater, and use small space heaters to warm up other rooms as needed. Our neighbor, lovely and kind Vicky Coffee, loaned us an electric space heater, and the stove does a good job warming the kitchen. Unfortunately the weather has not remained balmy. It got down to around 5 last night, and right now it is 21 F, with some freezing rain.

Having a single major radiant heat source for the whole house is actually quite cozy. You are aware of the changes in temperature as you move about the house. If you stick your hand in the air, you discover it is noticeably warmer near the ceiling. In some rooms, cold air billows about your ankles like dry ice fog. The fact that the temperature is always in the foreground makes the heat more soothing.

The kerosene heater came with a lot of conflicting instructions. The grandmotherly woman at the wise buys said to never use kerosene that has been in a can that has held any other kind of fuel. Wild Bill Locy, who gave us a gallon of kerosene on Friday when we discovered that no stores were open that sold kerosene, said twice that we should ignore this rule. The instructions printed on the heater itself make very Talmudic pronouncements on this bit of kashrut law. “Kerosene is to be kept only in blue cans. Kerosene that has been in red gasoline cans or yellow diesel cans is unclean.” When we were finally able to purchase kerosene, we were unable to secure a blue kerosene can, so we purchased a new yellow diesel can and wrote “Kerosene only: no other fuel has been in this can nor should go in this can” on it using indelible marker. Hopefully this will satisfy the petroleum rabbis.