The furnace turned on again and my mental cash register went ka-ching again. It's

[Skidmore]

a bitter cold morning here in Iowa. I'm sitting with my morning coffee, in my winter pj's, my robe, a pair of wool socks, and my slippers, and my house is a tolerable 65 degrees until 9 am when it will reach 68 degrees for a few hours. My hands are freezing.

Outside the window, the night sky glows with that strange eerie quasi-dayglow light that blows in with a winter storm. You can see the snowfields stretch out to the stand of trees on the copse in the distance. Each outbuilding stands in relief. You could count the boards in this halflight of winter, if you so desired. Here and there, mounds of broken tree branches memorialize the cold crystal ice world created earlier in the month. It is a still, cold Christmas Eve morn.

The furnace kicks in again. As chilly as it is here, I know that there are dark figures who huddle together beneath overpasses and bridges, who can find no rooms at shelters this night. Who own no bed from which to sleepily crawl. Those who have no hot mug of coffee or bowl of oatmeal to lend comfort on such a morning. The spurned fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters of a nation so consumed with the twinkling of strings of colored lights that they fail to see the cold twinkling of the winter starlight under which the homeless sleep.

The whir of the furnace fan invokes the gods of technology to fend off the timeless cold outside the walls of home while in the crisp chilled air the ageless question hangs still as yet unanswered by man, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Do something today and in this season to provide warmth and comfort for those who do not have it, and extend whatever season of meaning to you to the entire span of your life.

Peace and kindness to all.

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Actually, everything is just fine. Profits are WAY up for republicon cronies..." - Commander AWOL

"...and so if you proles* can just put a sock in it, and sit down, you will see that the Trickle Down theory of republicon-nomics is, um, doubleplusgood strategery <smirk> for us 'elite' republicon homelanders. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL



* proles = formerly known as citizens of the United States of America

[whathappened]

2. feeling the pain

we thought we had everything undercontrol , stay the winter in fl , came from mi.
wife worked 3 days down here and fell and broke her sholder , now we are setting here going down hill fast , as soon as she is done with her doctor here , we are heading back to mi,
to file for bankrupsy , no other way out of this mess i got us in , so feb. sometime we will
be huddled in our blankets just like you and cold , but thank our blessings we still have a roof over our head , the one's who are on the streets may if there lucky have a cardboard box
to take cover in down here in fl. so i wish them a merry xmas where ever they are , and wishing jr. don't take all of us down the road to being dirt poor .

[knitter4democracy]

9. Whereabouts in Michigan?

We're in Battle Creek. Let me know when you get back.

[Shae]

3. Thank you.

So beautifully expressed.
My first recommend ever.
Happy Christmas to you.

[fed-up]

4. It is 40 degrees inside my house, but at least I have a roof over my head-am wearing

3 turtle necks, one long john top, two sweatshirts and one sweater on top of that.

I have leggings under my jeans and two pairs of socks. Also a knit cap on my head.

Sixty-five would probably feel like the desert to me right now.

I just figured out that heating my rice sock and wrapping it around my neck is a great way to warm up enough to fall asleep. It also helps with my neck/back spasms, so I get double use out of it.

Only one more month of really cold weather to get through and the days are starting to get longer a few minutes at a time.

Somehow the early pioneers managed to live without heat, so I think I will survive..At least I am not contributing to pG&E's bottom line, so that puts a smile on my frozen face. :)

[wellstone dem]

6. I can't turn it down to 40 because the pipes would freeze

but I just turned it up from the 55 it is at night to 62. When my daughter isn't home (she's in college) it only gets turned up to 60. An you are right, 62 feels too warm.

And I thank God that I have a heating bill to worry about, a food bill to pay, and a job to pay it with.

Thanks for the reminder that I need to make at least one more donation--I need to contribute to the DU fundraising drive for Second Harvest.

[Toots]

5. And Exxon kachings away making NET PROFITS of OVER one hundred million a day

One Hundred Million dollars per Frigging DAY In the pocket money after all expenses have been paid. One Hundred Million per DAY Price of heating oil is up three fold since the Bush* Cabal took over America.. Ka Ching.......

[madokie]

7. I know its not possible with all but for those who could swing it google Pellet stoves

carbon neutral and relatively inexpensive to stay warm, not just what degree of cold one can stand.

[rurallib]

8. We use corn

after the initial outlay we have been saving greatly on heat.
With corn we can hit that 65 degree mark. When we use gas we kept it at 57.
I hope DU keeps 2nd Harvest going after xmas. I can probably afford something in Feb.

[knitter4democracy]

10. The wind here kept me awake a good bit last night.

I worried about those outside in that bone-chilling wind. Maybe the kids and I can go around to some of the known places in the area with hot soup if I can figure out how. We're putting bags together today for the food bank, so it would be easy.

[MorningGlow]

11. Lovely piece, Skidmore

It's just a shame we're all experiencing such situations that you expressed so beautifully.

We're not quite making ends meet (I refuse to look at the grand total of our five-figure credit-card debt), but we have a house, we have food. There will be presents under the tree for MG Jr. tomorrow. Even so, I cringe every time the furnace goes on, as well. We live in a big, drafty old house but can't afford to buy all the supplies we need to winterize it better. Not yet.

Last night, as I lay in the dark trying to get warm, and the wind whipped around our house, whistling in through too-old windows, I wept, thinking of those people huddling under bridges and lying on sidewalk grates, trying to survive the wind and the snow. I didn't know what made me so much more remorseful this year--it was the first time I truly cried for the people who "will always be with us" (if you believe the Repub line), but then I realized it's because these days it's so much more likely that "those people" could very well be someone I know, that "but for the grace of god" and one pink slip more or less, people in our economic bracket could end up under that bridge. Could even be us (neutralizing that thought).

There's a woman in my area who holds a Christmas dinner for vets every year; she places an ad in the personals section each Christmas season. This year she asked for stuffed animals, and I tried to talk MG Jr. into giving up the ones he never plays with. He balked; he still hasn't tweaked to the concept of giving to those less fortunate. I refuse to hide behind the excuse "he's only 4". In a little while, I will try again. Because it's only by teaching the next generation compassion that we'll escape this particular hell.

[Skidmore]

13. MG, I wept with you during the night.

[MorningGlow]

14. ..

:hug:

I finally managed to convince MG Jr. to give away some of his stuffed animals. I called the lady who organizes the Christmas dinner and left a message on her machine. I hope she calls back; seems the least we can do is box up some fluffy critters for the kids and hightail it 10 minutes up the road to deliver them.

[B Calm]

12. I just brought up a truck load of hard wood. I got my log splitter

out and came into the house to warm up.. My furnace has ran very little this winter, and I plan to keep it that way.

[diane in sf]

15. I aim my $10 desk light at my hands when I'm on the computer, and when

its really cold I use the fingerless gloves as well. It gets down in the 40s inside here sometimes before I get the furnace turned on in Nov. (no insulation or storm windows) and I sleep with a hot water bottle. My roommate used to keep hers in her lap while she computed--named it baby.