Time to embrace the flannel

Dear Blog Reader            

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. This winter weather has gotten pretty serious in a hurry. Just goes to show you what will happen when you throw hurricane force winds at Alaska. That’s right the Alaskans get honked off and send an early artic vortex can of whoop butt on our Hoosier Thanksgiving.

I do want to take this small opportunity to do some advertising. To the right of this blog is a button that lets you follow the blog. If you join ranks of blog followers, you will become part of an exclusive group of followers in the world. You will have something in common with 30 or so other followers. Out of all of the millions of people in the world on the internet, you would become part of the cool few who get notification that a new post has been perpetrated on the world. That would be a great Christmas present for yourself; nothing screams merry Christmas to me like the prestige and honor of knowing that you are part an elite, connected, group of cultured, hip, and well educated individuals. And I will get a kick of having a few more people follow “You Said What, Roger?”.

The Lovely Miss Beverly and I were sitting around a table with some good friends the other evening. (I can call you good friends. Can’t I?) We were speaking about the blog, and a recurring theme discussion started. “What do you think the recurring themes of your blog are Roger?” Without hesitation I said, “Assassin deer.” Which isn’t entirely true. It is Assassin deer and flannel sheets.

I was reminded of this by one of the blogs super readers. (I can call you a super reader. Can’t I?) After reading last week’s blog about the assassin deer attack on the Lovely Miss Beverly’s car and gathering walnuts for the impending winter. I received the following message in my in box. “When are you changing to flannel sheets?”

I was dumb struck. I had dropped the ball. I was so focused on the Assassin deer that I had forgotten about the flannel sheets. It is true that most of my focus in on removal of flannel sheets in the spring and trying to rally the troops to keep them on through May 15^th in an homage to the weather gods capricious nature and their desire to ruin the apple crop with a late season freeze. My focused obsession in one area had kept me blind to this other danger lurking in the shadows sneaking up on me. I had left the Sharritt’s exposed to mortal danger. We were one quick cold snap from freezing to death in our sleep. (Or at least being uncomfortable for an hour or two in the middle of the night trying to outlast the Lovely Miss Beverly. Hoping she would get up walk across the cold floor pull out the emergency quilt and lay it lovingly over my cold body, thereby allowing my body to generate more warmth through the shear exertion of supporting 50 lbs of blankets.)

To make excuses: the weather had lulled me into complacency. Sure October temps were cool for their daytime highs, but the overnights stayed pretty warm. The average frost date in Indianapolis is mid- October. 3 out of the last 4 years we received a frost the last week of September. This year? It was late October. Average temperatures are such a tricky thing. So the nights have not been cold enough to need flannel sheets.

Also, the Sharritt’s have made a technological leap. This past summer we put in geo thermal air conditioning and consequently, heating. We have relied totally on wood heat for the past 10 years. I have always felt like the exercise of cutting wood has made me a conservationist. Every room that I shut the heat off in is a ½ piece per day of wood that I do not have to cut. Every degree that I leave the temp below 70 degrees is another ½ piece of wood per day that I do not have to cut.  Pretty soon those 120 days of one piece of wood add up and I save a couple of trees. The other challenge with the old technology is that the house took a long while to heat up. Turn up the heat and then sit in front of space heaters and under blankets while the house warmed from 60 up to 70 before bed time. Then we would turn back the heat and bask beneath the heavenly flannel sheets for our long winter’s nap.

With the new technology, the wood heat is augmented with the geothermal and wow the house heats up very quickly. We can jump the temp 10 degrees in about 45 minutes. The temperature changes so quickly that we are concerned that tornadoes could be spawned across the warm front as it moves through the house. The other thing that happens is that we find ourselves waking up soaked in sweat because we have set the fancy thermostat to start warming the house at 4:10; 20 minutes before alarm clocks start sounding for Bev and I to start our days. Literally, I started to empathize with the frog sitting in the slowly warming water not realizing that the critical boiling temperatures were arriving until it was too late. Morning after morning, I have been throwing the covers off in fitful bursts trying to keep from spontaneously combusting. The situation would become truly dire if we were to have flannel sheets on the bed.

Not to worry, I have been adjusting the fancy thermostat so the heat comes on later and later. A couple more days and the conditions will be right for flannel sheets and all will be right with the world.

Isn’t that the trouble with technology? Every advancement leaves us searching for answers to cope with the changes the advancement created. On the way to increased warmth, we get too hot so now we can’t enjoy the goodness that is a flannel sheet. We adjust until we learn to live with the progress that technology has brought, and find ourselves in nearly the same spot where we started.  We see it with computers, smart phones, microwave popcorn, and the electric tooth brush.

For now though, it is time to turn back the heat and put on the flannel sheets. Winter is coming and nothing says warm like flannel on a cold, dark, winter’s night. It is time to embrace the flannel.

Take care.

Roger