A couple of years ago I noticed that my previous state of being too warm, when everyone else was comfortable, has become being too chilly when everyone else is comfortable. I like to joke that while other women of my age, and earlier usually, enjoy the comforts of hot flashes, I have to be different and have cold flashes.

Hubby is not too pleased these days as I pile more and more covers on the bed. In days past he would grab the blankets and roll up in them, effectively cooling me, but now he gets such a pile of blankets when he grabs and rolls he can't actually do the job efficiently. No, now Hubby has taken to throwing extra covers toward my side of the bed in an effort to save himself from drowning in his own perspiration. Poor man, after all those years being so chilly he had to steal my blankets he now has to worry about being soaking wet.

Yet, getting older has its benefits and since I am cold most of the time now, Hubby does not have to struggle to keep the heat turned to a comfortable (for him) level. In consideration of all the years I spent telling him to put some clothes on when he was chilly, I generally do not turn up the heat, but instead I put on a toque or some other head covering, a heavy sweater, long underwear, a dickey to cover my neck, boots plus, if I have to, leg warmers and, if worst comes to worst, I put on another sweater.

Dressing in layers works as well indoors as out and I never worry if I look odd with all those clothes on. It's a simple matter to remove some when I warm up and if I don't warm up well I can always get out a blanket and add it to the layers. There is no reason to be shivering in a room of warm people.

Ditto for my new to me car. It has leather seats and so did my old car. However, this car possesses either some brand of leather conducive to retaining the cold or a clever facsimile of leather detectable only by people who, upon sitting in the car, swiftly rise and look for someplace to rewarm their frozen nether regions. Yes, the information on the car says leather, but it is leather that remarkably mimics the chill of vinyl. I suspect a leather treatment that plasticizes the leather a bit hence the plastic chill I feel when I sit in the car.

The feel of my car seats reminds me concisely of a vehicle I used to drive to work many years ago. My employer possibly believed that vinyl seats were an easily cleaned material. To some degree this is true, as long as the weather cooperates. Once the thermometer begins its winter plunge, the wonders of vinyl swiftly give way to wondering how to dry them as any type of cleaning causes a film of ice to form. Along with the chattering teeth of the driver this culminates in a sort of symphony of vinyl. The worst thing I recall about that particular vehicle is the way   keeping the engine running could not warm those seats after thirty below. I spent many hours sitting on a blanket and now I am doing it again.

Following many discussions about getting some car seat covers, I tossed a couple of blankets into the car. I can sit on those and not be so chilly and Hubby does not have to worry about having a hot seat from car seat covers. Yet, when I find myself getting caught up in a blanket, while trying to do up my seatbelt, I mutter fiendishly about picking up some car seat covers, warm, fuzzy ones, maybe in shades of red or flamboyant green. Hubby winces at the suggestion, so I kindly continue to use my blanket, but lately have been thinking it would only take a few stitches in that blanket for me to have a car seat cozy to yank off when I see someone who enjoys the feel of plastic approaching the car.

Since arrival to Dawson Creek in 1960, Margo Hannah plants, paints and ponders, utilizing thrift and sloth to accomplish all