HEAT

Okay, I lied. I promised four New Things with each post until you all were fully updated. But seeing how long it takes me to write about a single New Thing, if I keep my promise, you might end up waiting another year and a half for another post. So this post will be dedicated to just one New Thing. And let me tell you my friends, this is a big one: we finally have heat.

Because it is June, I know that this statement doesn’t pack much of a wallop. But I tell you, in wintertime it was cold in there. You know how Dante’s vision of the 9th circle of Hell was a giant lake of ice in which the very worst sinners were encased alive? Well, Dante could have stuck his sinners in our house for a night. Or, say, for the month of January. Judas and co. would have considered themselves well and duly punished.

But I digress... Sorry, I’m just excited. For three winters, I have bravely endured (stop snorting Dawg) glacial temperatures inside the house, but this winter I won’t have to. It will finally be warmer inside the house than out.

We decided to go with gas to heat the house, which was an obvious choice to me, but not so for everyone else. Why was gas an obvious choice for me? Read a draft of a post I wrote over a year ago when we were still considering which fuel to use. And try not to call me an idiot:

I can't get over how much there is to learn about home restoration. The questions about heating alone are enough to boggle the mind: what type of heating do we want? What kind is most efficient? What kind is typical for the region? Where will we put the heater? Should we combine and water and space heater? How well insulated is the house? What kind of insulation do we need to add? Does our insulation affect the type of heater we should get? How much will it cost? and so forth.

I am completely clueless when it comes to stuff like this. I've had gas heating in almost every apartment I've lived in, so in considering what kind of heating we should have for the house, I've been automatically reaching for 'gas' since that's the only type of energy with which I'm familiar. What kind of heating? Gas, of course!

But our little village does not have gas.

News like that makes me realize how unprepared I am for this project. I swear it never occurred to this city girl that gas might not be available in every town or village in a civilized country. In fact, it has never truly occurred to me that gas actually comes from somewhere. It doesn't just magically appear in one's oven or radiator -- it must be piped into town and distributed, and is done only so at the behest of the local government. I know this is not a huge revelation for most people, but it makes me wonder what other simple facts I don't know.

I’m an idiot right?

Don’t answer that.

Anyway, as I mentioned, we did finally choose gas. And since the village doesn’t have gas, a big shiny gas truck came – the kind you speed pass on the highway, praying that it doesn’t explode or overturn – and buried a huge tank of gas in our yard.

Kind of strange and scary thought, isn’t it? Something so dangerous sitting there on your property? I know it’s not like an unexploded mine, but it was a big deal to figure out where to put the gas tank so that no car or truck would drive over it.

That’s sort of like an unexploded mine, isn’t it?

Ugh. Don’t answer that.