January 31, 2001
Dear Everyone:
Lots of groping around in the dark going on around here these days. Not because the power’s out, but in an effort to make sure it doesn’t go out anytime soon. We’re all doing our part to try and conserve energy wherever possible.
I have a lamp in the living room that’s plugged into a timer. Shortly before I’m due to get up in the morning, the lamp comes on automatically. Shortly after I leave for work, it shuts itself off. Then it comes back on just before I get home in the evening and off again after I go to bed. This way, the place is lit when I need it to be.
There’s also a lamp in the bedroom that comes on in the morning to help wake me up. It goes off when I leave for work, comes on again in the evening and shuts off right before bedtime.
However, in an effort to save energy, I have turned off the living room lamp except for when I’m actually in the living room, which is generally from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00, when I watch one hour of TV before bed. (The bedroom lamp still comes on in the morning, because I need it to convince my photo-sensitive body that it really, really is time to get up; but I turn it off before leaving.) Now, when I go downstairs each morning, for my juice and vitamins, I have to grope for the light switch at the top of the stairs. The bedroom door is closed, because that’s the only room I heat in the morning, and I don’t want any of that precious warm air to escape while I’m out of the room. It may be 58º in the dark living room, but it’s a toasty 68º in the bedroom.
Once the light is on over the stairs, I can safely make my way to the kitchen. The kitchen light is fluorescent, so I figure it’s OK to leave that on for the 90 minutes that it takes me to pull myself together for work. I’m in and out of the kitchen a lot during that time.
It’s light enough now by 7:00 a.m. that I can turn all the lights off before leaving in the morning and still be able to see to find my keys. However, if I work late (always a possibility these days), it’s dark when I get home at night. The outside patio light is connected to a motion sensor, so it comes on when I enter the patio. The trick is to unlock the door, get inside, dump everything and get to the kitchen light switch before the outside light goes out again. Otherwise, I bump into things.
I turn the furnace on when I get home (set to 68º), but turn it off again as soon as the inside temperature gets high enough for it to shut off on its own. Otherwise, it’ll just come back on when the temperature dips a little. I’m also using candles a lot more in the evening, instead of lamps. So much more romantic. Also, they generate a little heat.
On the plus side, I finally found out where the grocery store was hiding the butane lighters. I had a great, long-necked lighter for lighting candles, but I gave it to “Jeannie” when hers ran out, figuring I could just get another for myself. Around Christmas time, they were everywhere. Then they disappeared. Last time I was in the store, I asked where to find matches, thinking even if they didn’t have the lighters, I could use matches if I could just find where they were located.
I, myself, would never have thought to look in the pet food section. For some strange reason, I don’t associate matches with Kitty and Fido, but the store manager had some extra space in the kibble department, so that’s where they put the matches. And the long-necked lighters. I have two now.
And why is all of this happening? Apparently, the power company, which was making record profits since deregulation went into effect, siphoned all those profits off to a parent company. Thus, when the price of natural gas and electricity suddenly went up, the power company was a little short of funds. Did the parent company step in and rectify the situation? No, it did not. Why should it when it can try and get the state and federal governments to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for it? How else can the CEO expect to get his (obscenely high) bonus?
(Speaking of which, a lot of people who have fireplaces are using them, thus contributing to air pollution. Another thing to complain about.)
The state government, whose legislature wrote the deregulation laws, is scrambling to catch up. As for the newly-elected President, he thinks we should find our own way out of this mess. He’s too busy trying to turn churches into a new branch of the government.
Maybe this is payback for what happened during the oil embargo in the mid-1970’s. When heating fuel was scarce in the eastern states, Californian’s cars sported bumper stickers that read: “Let ‘em shiver in the dark. We want gasoline!”
Love, as always,
(Shivering)
Pete
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