Weakest Links

Cranky #2 spent a particularly chilly holiday at CGF because of the window pictured here. Single-paned, northern exposure, with a storm window that's not trying very hard. C1 and C2 each received two snuggies for Christmas, and they wore both of them to keep warm in this north bedroom. A tribute to early 20th century style and engineering, this window is impossibly tall and impossibly drafty.
All this elongated draftiness was amplified during by the Great Christmas Eve Blizzard and Door Failure of Ought Nine. On an evening when the wind was up, the mercury was down, and the snow falling at a steady pace, the lock on the entry door went on vacation, and no one in the Cranky household could get it to return our calls. We coaxed, reasoned, and pleaded, but all we got in return was the box-lock answering machine: "Leave a message if you want, but you're hosed. Losers."

MC found the possibility of being house-bound on Christmas Eve kind of charming. The Cranky family huddles around a propane heater and eats microwave popcorn with fake butter flavoring, just like in the olden Cranky days. But the house party voted down cozy romanticism. Instead, Cranky men applied hammers and screwdrivers, and removed the offending door from its hinges. The Cranky men are a hearty bunch; a thermometer reading 19 degrees was in plain sight, yet entrance and egress was their goal. With the door removed, we enjoyed complete access to both house and farm. If the cattle had heard about our open door policy, we're sure they would have stopped by for some hospitality. Our scores for accessibility were perfect, but our energy efficiency suffered.

MC is confident that Teenaged Nephew will grow up to accomplish many good and great things, but to her mind, his greatness was fortold by his heroism during the Great Ought Nine Blizzard and Door Failure. With only a screwdriver and a can of WD-40, Teenaged Nephew repaired the Cranky box lock and brought beauty and body heat back into our holiday. We think there's a MacArthur genius grant in his future.

President Obama has observed that "insulation is sexy stuff"; MC may be impossibly naive, but she doesn't see that claim as a part of a dangerous Marxist environmental initiative to divert our tax dollars to Home Depot. Based on her recent Christmas Eve adventure, she can state from empirical experience that not freezing in a blizzard is, in fact, a turn-on. Having a front door in place when it's snowing outside is practically pornographic. Her task before the next snowfall is to upgrade the leaky window and restore credibility to the unreliable lock. Because higher R-values are the new sexy.
--MC