Burst Pipes and Other Winter Pastimes

One of the reasons I haven't been around much lately is that I had a homeowner's emergency to deal with—not my own home, but my in-laws' apartment not too far from us. Frigid temperatures, frozen pipes, and a croaked boiler all contributed to the fun. Nobody was there at the time—they live in Puerto Rico, but are using this as the first step to living closer as the trials of the senior years creep in. It's a lovely, quaint old apartment. And by quaint, I mean drafty and poorly insulated, as a part of its charm. Dealing with this took a surprising amount of time and energy, starting with a couple of hours with the shop-vac, sucking water up out of the basement. That was just for starters.

One good thing about the cold temperatures, though. It's eased my fears that global warming is coming at us like a runaway freight train. Maybe it's only coming at us like a lumbering freight train.