I went to an old lady's house with my wife this past winter. The lady is getting up in years and not moving around very much and her family and friends are concerned that she needs to be in a partial-care facility but doesn't have the money or inclination to move.
My wife had bought the lady a wall clock that displayed the date, day of the week, and time on it. She did this because the lady had said a couple of times that she didn't even know what day it was. My wife's hope is that the display of the day of the week will help keep the lady in touch a little better.
When we took the clock to the lady's house it was just getting dark on a cold winter day. The high temperature had been in the mid-40s and was forecast to be in the mid-20s that night. So the lady had her heaters going full blast in the living room. When we went in she was tucked under a pile of blankets in her reclining chair.
The heaters made the room hot! One heater was electric and kept cycling on and off while we were there. I guess it had a temperature sensor and was trying not to overheat the room.
The other heater was a home propane heater. It was short, about the height of a coffee table, and stood against the back wall of the living room. It was going full-blast with flames and blower and had no temperature control on it. It was very nice to warm my buns in front of but quickly made me start sweating so I had to move away from it. It was a small, crowded living room so I couldn't get very far away from the heater.
That propane heater reminded me of my grandparent's house in Florida. Their home heater was as tall as I was when I was 13 or so, about 5 feet tall. Grandpa had a big tank in the side yard of the house and had it filled once a winter. The tank was big enough to last all winter in Florida.
When it got cold in central Florida it felt really cold to everyone down there. So once Grandpa got that heater going in the kitchen he would leave it going all night and into the morning. He would close the kitchen doors that led to the living room and the hallway to the bedrooms to keep the heat in. That room would get hot! The few times my father took me over to their house on cold evenings we would have our heavy jackets on and quickly peel them off down to our t-shirts while sitting there. Dad would talk with Grandpa about things and Grandpa would comment on everything, talking about how the "system" worked against regular people.
I remember getting so hot in the heated kitchen that I would be falling asleep at the table. And then when we would leave we'd go outside and freeze even more because it had been so hot in the kitchen.
It was fun to be reminded of that when we took the clock to the old lady.
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