Happy New Year and Stay Warm

By Gordon Hopkins Have you ever tried one of those weighted blankets? For those unfamiliar with the concept, a weighted blanket is literally what the name says, a really heavy blanket. They can weigh between five and 30 pounds and are supposed to help people with anxiety and insomnia and various nervous disorders.They are supposed to be comforting and I suppose they are to some. Personally, the idea of having this heavy weight on me while I am trying to sleep unnerves me.Imagine trying to sleep under three weighted blankets.Now imagine trying to sleep under three weighted blankets that periodically get up and walk around on your chest, sinking their claws into your flesh.Yes, this column is about my cats, if only tangentially. It's my last column of the year. People would be disappointed if I didn't waste my few precious editorial inches blithering about my cats.This week, my furnace broke down. One morning I woke up, stuck my feet out from under the blankets and immediately withdrew them when the cold air tickled my toes.That is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for me. I do that every morning. This time, my feet didn't seem to warm up after I finally forced myself out of bed.I turned up the temp on the thermostat but I didn't hear the familiar “thunk”, followed by a whoosh of hot air.Now, everyone living in the Midwest has gone through it at some point. If you rent, you call your landlord/lady. If you own your own home, as I do, you call someone to repair the furnace while doing some mental math to figure out if you have enough money in the bank to pay for it.Yes, everyone has gone through it, so it seems silly for me to recount my own experience.But I'm gonna anyway. Just a little.Unlike the drama with my air conditioner over the summer (It exploded – true story – not hyperbole), getting my furnace fixed just required a call and then some patience, as the soonest appointment available was the next day, meaning I had to spend the night in a rapidly cooling house.I did try a couple of things to see if I could fix the problem myself. Perhaps the pilot light went out. I told myself I could relight a pilot. It took me more than an hour of examining the inside of my furnace with a flashlight and watching YouTube videos about how to light a pilot before I realized I don't have a pilot light. I have an electric ignitor.So, I closed off every room in my house, trying to keep the living room warn with a space heater. I am very aware of the number of fires caused by space heaters in the winter, as I have had to cover several, and I have what is called a sealed combustion heater, which means it doesn't have those exposed wires that turn orange like a giant toaster. A sealed combustion heater is supposed to be one of the safest kinds out there.This meant I had to sleep on the sofa, since my bedroom was too cold. This meant, obviously, that I slept with three cats on top of me all night long, purring away.That's all I got. Enjoy 2024. I hope it is a little calmer than 2023. (But I know it won't be. Oh, well.)

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