With a fresh pile of wood and plenty of kindling from the post-Ike wind storm, I’m ready for winter. According to AccuWeather.com, this season is likely to be bitterly cold for land east of the Great Plains.
Cold I can handle. Snow I can handle. Snow, cold, ice, and no power? Nyet. That was the combination we faced during the Christmas of 2004. I sat in front of this fireplace (why did they build it in the kitchen, for god’s sake?) for five days, in a sleeping bag, with a radio, a book, candles, ashtray, coffee (when we could get it), and cigarettes. I obsessively poked and stirred and grumbled. I felt myself morphing into Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
