The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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It's +6C today. A Chinook blew in yesterday and has settled for awhile. My body is aching but at least it's nice outside, I guess.

Australia's climate ranges from equatorial-monsoonal in the north to temperate rainforest in the south, with rather a lot of hot arid desert in between. So, as with the USA, there's quite a variation in building styles depending on where you are. ZanneMarie, the older Florida architecture you describe reminds me of the traditional Queenslander style of building: the entire structure raised up on piers to allow air to circulate underneath; flat-pitched roof with wide overhang; and a verandah going all the way around the house. On hot nights you might sleep out on the verandah, or even underneath the house. (All swathed in netting to keep the mozzies off! )

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Thank you, ZanneMarie! I was learning about all this slowly, having lived here only 4 years. It's great to understand this particular architecture. Like you said, we don't often hit the 20's at night, so now it makes sense why I've got a tin roof and the house is not resting on the ground. If I ever leave Florida again, the three things I will not miss will be: The Humidity (although it does wonders for my dry skin) the Heat, and the Giant Roaches. Otherwise, it's alright.

And you're right, Blessedmom. My aches multiply in the cold.

Last edited by hartzofspace on 03 Jan 2008, 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sleepy,

The old "cracker" houses are like that. My uncle has one and it is always much cooler than my "better" and more "modern" house. LOL He also doesn't have the problems with mildew that we have. Did those houses have turbines on the roofs to let the heat out? That's also common with the old Florida homes.

I think people that move here from the North go through these phases where they miss the houses up North (raises her hand) so they buy the closest thing. After they spend thousands and thousands of dollars they finally visit some "dimwit" who lives in a "trashy" cracker house. They quickly discover it's actually cooler and stays drier! Then, they spend thousands to fix their house after a hurricane while the cracker house that is over a hundred years old and up on blocks is in the worst part of three hurricanes and didn't even lose a window. Every tree in the yard is sheered off at roof level, but the house is just fine. At this point the person finally figures out that they knew what they were doing back then and all of the "improving" of the homes here has just made them cost more money, capture heat, grow mildew and not stand up as well to storms. This is when I wonder why exactly we were given the bigger brain. LOL

Anyway, this is the second cold day of the year and my hand hurts. I used my bigger brain as a child to decide that I would not go in before my brothers despite the fact that I had snow in my mittens. Needless to say I got frostbite. 44 years later my hand still hurts. So much for having the bigger brain.

This made me think of something my father alway said. You're so smart you're stupid. I still laugh when I think of that.

What funny sayings did your parents have?

Cold Shot - Stevie Ray Vaughan
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdgcgE84Tdc[/youtube]

Colin James and Willie Dixon

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTRQcl4SO8k[/youtube]

Edit: Wow, am I out to lunch today! I didn't even notice that we hit page 700!

Last edited by blessedmom on 04 Jan 2008, 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know how you feel, Hartz. I sit on a heating pad, have my feet swathed in three pairs of socks and tennies, I have a woollen blanket over my shoulders and a small space heater blowing under the desk. I have my beautiful cashmere throws tacked to the pass through to the kitchen, and over the bathroom door (with the door shut) and it is 58 degrees in my front room, 30 degrees in the bathroom! Taking a shower or using the john is . . as they used to say in the old Dr. Pepper commercials . . .it's Frosty, man, Frosty!
( now you know why I sit on the heating pad! ) I have an electric blanket that goes UNDER the bottom sheet, because as any good cook knows, there is more heat when you bake than when you broil!

Other than that, I just close my eyes and remind my self that spring comes early in Oregon, and March is just around the corner! And rain is fine, because as long as it is raining, it is not freezing!


Merle

Dad always said "little girl, in this vale of tears, life is so hard and then one day you are dead." I always imagined a big square of water bound up with calf torturing bailing wire because I always thought he said 'bale of tears'.

My mother would look at me and ask "honor bright?" and I would dutifully say "honor bright!" It wasn't until I was in my 50's I realized she was asking me 'is your honor bright?" or 'are you telling me the truth?" No wonder she thought I was a liar and devious human being!

my uncle used to say " your eyes are like two peeled green grapes afloat on a sea of garbage"
"your eyes look like two burned holes in a blanket!" I don't know what the deal was with the eyes with him.

Merle

Maybe I should put the electric blanket underneath, too. Last night, I put the dial up to 8, and still was chilly. My cat was happy, though. She thought warmth like that could only happen after I put the freshly dried and folded laundry on the bed. And yes, Merle, I wonder how people could bear to visit the outhouse in the old days before bathrooms? I read book about a family in Maine in the 1890's, who received handmade toilet seat covers, which they heated in the oven before their nightly trip to the outhouse before retiring for the night. I guess they used chamber pots for late at night.

and I remember showing my blackened toes to the doctor that casually mentioned 'don't freeze those toes again or we will have to amputate.'

I was driving home in South Dakota in the dark and the cold and was just realizing the car I had just bought for 50 dollars didn't have a heater that worked. I kept stomping my foot on the floorboard but by the time I got home and put it into warm water, the damage was done.
It aches when they get cold. . but they are not black now. That went away in a couple years.

Merle

Well, here's me, trying to get myself back into my local time zone. Went to bed around midnight, got up at 5am. Will it work? Found that somehow I'd (yet again) stopped getting reminders for here, as of two days ago. Hi all! Haven't got anything wildly clever to say (strange... for me), but I thought I'd sneak myself at least one post as the 700th page wanes.

Thank you for the awesome music, blessedmom! Stevie Ray and Willie Dixon are two of my favorites!

So many... so many.... With my mother, it's a tossup between "Look it up in the dictionary!" and "I'll get the wooden spoon...."


Yes, I think it's fairly common all over Australia. People often fit one in the ceiling of their bathroom to draw the humidity out.

I grew up in Canada where everything was insulated, double-glazed and weather-stripped to within an inch of its life. But houses here in Oz are designed to maximise airflow: cool air in at the bottom, hot air out through the tile roof at the top. I can't see roofing tiles ever becoming popular in Florida; one medium-sized storm would undoubtedly strip 'em off like fish scales.

You've been on Australian time, Lau!

My new theory as to why Skype kept causing WP to crash on my computer, whilst other sites like Google continued to work okay - there must be conflict between Skype and some-or-other browser plugin or enhancement that's used by some web pages but not others. Now to see whether Skype or MS have come up with a nifty solution...

Hi, Lau! I bought a headset with a microphone, but still couldn't get it to work. I used the test call. Could you tell me again how to get added to a chat? I didn't want to go through the hassle I had yesterday, by hitting that green phone receiver picture. At least I got to hear Merle's lovely voice!

Yay, Lau!! You finally made it onto one of the pages whose name we shall not speak!!