There Will Indeed Be Weather Tomorrow

I can’t remember a time that there wasn’t a barometer in my house. It was just one of those things that was on my mom and dad’s wall that I paid no attention to at all. I don’t remember mom and dad paying any attention to it either, but to tell the truth as long as there was food on the table and the TV was working I didn’t pay attention to mom or dad either.

 

There was probably a science class at sometime when I was in school that I learned about barometric pressure, but I didn’t pay much attention to the teachers either. By the time I was born weather forecasting was something else I didn’t pay attention to. Now I find it amazing that when I was a kid the weatherman on TV managed to be so accurate without the use of weather satellites. I imaging that the newsroom would have a phone tree of sorts spanning hundreds of miles reporting the weather in Podunk Ontario and every small nothing town between there and Toronto forming a map that would enable the weatherman to tell me that I had a snow day or rain day. They probably had an impressive barometer that would help them as well.

 

For those that don’t know, a barometer measures the air pressure and any change in pressure signifies a corresponding change in the weather. It was invented around 1640 by either a Frenchman or an Italian and they are probably still arguing about it. No one really cares at all now and most people didn’t care back then. The first barometer was water filled and about 34 feet tall, and the neighbours thought it was a weapon of war so a barometer using mercury was invented to keep the neighbours happy. Now of course there are digital barometers and there are mechanical ones that make use of metal springs. I think mine must be that kind, because if it were mercury based I would have taken it apart and been playing with the mercury for a long time now. Mercury is bad by the way and should not be played with. Which makes me wonder why my teachers let us play with it. Probably because they couldn’t get their hands on enriched plutonium.

 

So, I grew up with a barometer in the house which isn’t a surprise because both sides of my family were at one time sea faring people and knowing what the weather was going to do would be very important. I guess it was one of those things everyone had in their houses back in the good old days. When my mom passed in 2000, I took the barometer along with the trivet that said “NO MATTER WHERE I SERVE MY GUESTS IT SEEMS THEY LIKE MY KITCHEN BEST” The Trivet is in the basement and the barometer is on a wall in the kitchen and was pretty much ignored until the COVID epidemic. I guess one day while not doing anything I noticed it on the wall and thought that I should keep a daily record of the changes in barometric pressure in my kitchen. I kept a record for three or four months and then realized I just didn’t really care that much since I had the weather girl to tell me what to expect weather wise and she is much better to look at than the barometer.

 

Strangely enough, now every morning when I am making my coffee I look at the barometer and reset it so that I can see if there will indeed be weather tomorrow. It is kind of fun to see it move from day to day and although I don’t care that much about the weather since I am retired, it is however, something to do while I wait for my coffee.

 

FURNACE AND AIR CONDITIONER

 

 

A while back we decided that we needed a new furnace and central air conditioning. When I say “we” of course I mean that Louise decided we needed a furnace and central air and eventually I embraced the inevitable and agreed that she was right in this and most other things. The summers have been getting much hotter the last few years and the window shaker air conditioner just isn’t cutting it. Plus I am getting older and the installation is getting a little more difficult every year.

 

My reluctance was based mainly on being cheap/tight/thrifty/Scroogelike and pretty much tight fisted. It isn’t that we couldn’t afford it, but what if I live to be a hundred and need that money to pay for extra food in the home the kids put me in or protection so I don’t get dry humped by the staff. I doubt that will happen, I am no prize now and in another thirty years I will have to pay someone to dry hump me.

 

The other reason is that I would have to clear away shit from the shed at the side of the house and from around the furnace. No good has ever come from cleaning! Plus it is a lot of work and I am happily retired. It turned out not to be too much work but I will be able to complain about it for months and years to come.

 

The furnace has been working fine and has since it was installed in 1992. However, who is to say just how long it would have continued to work fine. A buddy of mine has a company come in every summer to do routine maintenance on his furnace for a couple of hundred bucks a pop. Being cheap I You Tubed how to do that maintenance and saved myself $200 bucks every year. Of course I understand that what I did had almost no impact on the furnace, but I felt better.

 

That brings us to today.

 

We have a couple of guys in here banging and screwing and drilling up a storm. They ripped the old furnace out and are in the process of putting the new one in. I guess tomorrow will see the AC installed. I love to watch people work just as much as people don’t like being watched when they work. I have been drifting down to check out the progress all morning but I am very obviously in the way.

 

So here I am writing a blog for the first time in a long time just to keep myself busy. I have been retired for about fifteen years and I kind of miss working. I would love to go down and hold a light for the guys or pass them the drill, but I am really not needed. When I say I miss working that is only true if I don’t have to work. I guess I like the idea of working but not the actual work itself.

 

Anyways, I will put up with the noise and the feeling of being useless for another day or so and once the furnace is hooked up and I am assured of being cool on the hottest days of the summer I will go back to bitching about how much work I have to do finding new homes for all of the crap I have moved in the past week or two. I have to keep it so the kids will have something to toss in the garbage bin when I die.