Ironic?

One of the things my students quickly learn about me is that I like a cold classroom. I always joke that I keep it cold so that they stay awake to prevent hypothermia from claiming them. The truth is that I move around a great deal when I teach and I don't like to be over-heated. Risk of hypothermia is funnier.

But things around here are not so funny at the moment. On Monday, it was 60 degrees and raining. Yesterday the rain switched to a slurry of snow and ice and the temperatures sank to right at freezing. My furnace chose this moment to quit heating my home, which I discovered when I got home last night. I think that pilot light is out. Actually, I hope it's just the pilot light as that's a fairly inexpensive prospect. Furnace repair comes between noon and 4 pm later today. It's quiet around here without the furnace. No roar as it snaps to life. No clinking pipes. Just a quiet cold and the sound of my chattering teeth.

3:45 pm, furnace update:
Happily, the repair man showed up within seconds of my arrival home. He headed downstairs to check things out. The pilot light (which JT calls the pirate light) was working so then he did some stuff. And then the furnace was furnacing.

The diagnosis: not sure. I have a steam furnace and sometimes you need to drain the water. He did that and then re-filled it. Flipped the breaker; turned on the thermostat and bingo! back in business. It took a bit to get the water heated and the steam moving through but within a couple of hours, the house was warm again. Or warmish, anyway.....the thermostat is still set at 65, after all.

Let's not get crazy.

8 pm furnace update: Ummmm. Not working again. So.....repair version 2 tomorrow morning. Let's hope I meet with greater success.