The Fishbowl

Yes, my home, the namesake of my blog. Ye Olde Ice Box.

I'm presently sitting at my desk in the fishbowl, swaddled in a fleece bathrobe capped with a fuzzy pink winter hat. Not to mention my ski socks and shearling clogs. I am debating taking off my metal watch because it is just that cold.

According to my dashboard weather readout, it's a savage -20˚ Fahrenheit right now. Inside, with the electric heaters creaking and straining it's only 60 degrees. Possibly lower, but I haven't looked recently. Why, you might ask, would a school allow children to live in such inhospitable conditions? I don't know. I could speak volumes about the state of repair of my house, but today I'm going to focus on its heat inefficiency.

A couple of points.

We live in the Adirondacks. As far as I know, when this house was constructed in the first half of the 20th century, it was equally cold if not colder than it is now. Someone at the school decided, "What we really need is a modern, spacious house on campus with walls made out of large single paned glass windows, none of which can open. Also, we'll forget about insulation because we're tough Adirondack people. We can handle the cold!" Eff that! I have six large, single pane glass windows in my bedroom. My heat is turned up to 80 right now. I'm estimating that probably 40% of that heat is going straight out the window.

I must correct myself. Yes. The building probably has insulation. Insulation from 1945 or so.

Continuing on. Yesterday, my hands were so cold in my bedroom that I could not even type or write smoothly. I wrote a note for a student to take to the computer room that looked like it had been written by a recovering stroke victim.

Behold the windows (and the fabulous decorating in the kitchen)

Secondly, there's a small problem with the temperatures being, you know... cold when the school is rebounding from a lice infestation. All of the children's bedding was hauled away to quarantine. They have been sleeping with those skimpy blue thermal blankets and sheets for a week and a half now. I wake them up in the morning and they're quaking in fetal position in their sleep. It's driving me nuts. It's driving them nuts too. I hope the nurse pities everyone soon and declares a swift end to the delousing measures.

Furthermore, the school has taken steps to increase the heat efficiency of the house. They made large puffy thermal curtains that hang over the colossal panes downstairs. The problem? The electric heaters are located directly below them and most of the heat just soars right up behind the curtains. If you could hear me, you'd hear me laughing ruefully. My living room is unbearable right now.

While the thick layer of frost on the inside of the kitchen door is really lovely, it is wrong and bad. I want a smoothie right now, but I'm pretty sure that eating/drinking something cold is just not a good idea.

Perhaps I should relocate.

The Boarding School Licegeist

I haven't held down a blog... that is, a blog blog since college. I've dabbled with Myspace blogs and Facebook notes, but it's time I blogged again. As such, what better way to start than to dive right in with the current state of affairs at my current home and employer.

Last Sunday, after slogging through over 300 miles of monotonous interstate, half of those miles in the dark, I arrived home to a most unwelcome report. 14 cases of head lice at school. Including two of the kids that live with me. Cue Psycho music and a choppy, Man from Snowy River-esque zoom in, first on my coworker, who was very staid, then on my own horrified expression.

For those of you who have not lived with a lice infestation in recent years, you may have forgotten how instantly your scalp starts to itch after you've heard the news. I promptly felt a mixture of relief and alarm. Not to mention tiny insects scuttling about my scalp. Having spent the weekend in Philly, I knew that I could not possibly have it. But living not twenty feet from two 'infecteds', I was certainly at risk. The first day's work had been deftly handled by my support houseparents, but the worst loomed ahead.

Day two. 24 cases of lice. I immediately had my scalp checked for nits. Fingers were pointed at the children suspected of bringing us this delightful gift as if they were smuggling in deadly contraband. We'd successfully cleaned Lake Placid out of its entire supply of lice killing chemicals and turned to Saranac Lake for more supplies. Irresponsible decrees of 'bag and bury' came from above as the solution-du-jour for lice infested children.

By Day 3 with ever rising numbers, the powers that be developed a workable plan that involved replacing the infected sheets every morning and houseparents washing the clothing of the licey children daily as they cycled through the same three sets of clothing. The hatless rule in the dining room was chucked out the window, thankfully. I was waiting to see if my rabid co-teacher would tear into everyone for wearing scarves, kerchiefs and caps but she held her tongue. By Thursday she'd showed up in a kerchief herself.

I had five kids with the White Plague. Somehow, I've managed to escape getting it, even though I've been cleaning, bagging, washing and checking children for a full week. In one week, we'll be able to stop washing the kids clothes (and reclaim our valued free time).

Anyway, in an attempt to be humorous about the outbreak, a student and I crafted a long list of how our lives would change if the lice infestation perpetuated indefinitely.

Pretty soon, we'll be watching TV shows like The Lice is Right, Full Louse, Louse M.D., Mickey Louse and Monster Louse.

We'd listen to musicians like Modest Louse, Louse of Pain, Lice Cube and Crowded Louse

and songs like "Lice, Lice Baby", "Brick Louse", "Cold as Lice" and "Louse of the Rising Sun"

We'd eat eggs and sticky lice for breakfast, lice cakes, lice cream, lice noodles and of course, pork fried lice. We'd drink Lice Dream brand lice beverage and Lice soda.

We'd watch movies like The Louse on Haunted Hill, Louse of Wax, The Cider Louse Rules, Life as a Louse and the Louse of Flying Daggers.

Literary parodies like Of Lice and Men and Little Louse on the Prairie become instant classics.

Yes, life with lice could be humorous. But for now we have pyrenthrum and piperonyl butoxide on our side.

Die, Lice, Die.