Me: Man, it’s frickin’ freezing in your classroom. So, Magda’s been reading these articles about how Russia’s cut off Bulgaria’s oil and–
Colleague Name Redacted: –and we’re not going to have any heat? I know. However, the dean did say that if it stays this way they’re going to close the school.
M: Well fine, but closing school isn’t going to make me warm.
CNR: No, but if you don’t have to come to school you can at least stay at home.
M: Where there’s no heat, either.
CNR: True, but unlike in your classroom, there you can turn on the oven and open the door.
M: Wow, that is brilliant!
[Later]
Me: …except then I realized that of course we’d have babies climbing into the oven and roasting themselves to death.
Magda: Whatever.
[Still later]
Me: I guess I should try to be cheerful that all my classes have been canceled and go home and turn on the oven.
CNR: Of course if everyone in the country does that we’re going to be out of electricity pretty soon.
Me: Yeah, I was sort of thinking that the logic is a tiny bit circular.
If only there was some way you could combine something from the environment with oxygen from the air to create heat…
You’re making our single degree feel almost balmy!
As your tweets came into my phone today I felt I was somehow tuning in to long-lost messages from the Cold War.
Well, the Ukrainian crisis is a special case, but school closings are old hat in BG. Between fuel shortages and “flu vacations” (admin-closed school because of flu), I never worked more than half of January.
Enjoy the time off! If that means more blogging, I’m all for it!
Before I checked your site J and I were just discussing whether we should write to you and casually mention the cat stretched out to his luxurious full length in front of the cozy cast iron propane heater … but I thought that was too mean and also, probably you had electric heat, and gas for cooking, so what the hell do I know.
Or vice versa.
Every time you quote Magda I just love her more and more.