the little joys of homeownership

So, Thursday morning the aged gas heater died its last shuddering death, and for reasons that no longer seem quite as clear and compelling as I'm sure they were at the time neither of us did much of anything about it until everyone started shutting down for the weekend. We have in the last day and a half managed to determine that:

*indeed, the heater is not worth fixing
*people who install the systems that would effectively climate control our house (it being next to impossible to run decent cooling ductwork through a tiny 1930s vintage building) mark them up by at least 300% with installation fees, based on the unit pricing numbers available online
*we are done with gas furnaces, but the big box stores are done with stocking pellet stoves (and the places that do have them are not open on Sundays, or refuse to tell us when they are open)
*and it is a very good thing that we have insulation in the attic, and brand new classy windows.

We have set up the radiator-style space heater in the bedroom and stapled a spare sheet to hang over the door. The cat thinks this is fantastic, and dashes in and out around it any time we go through the doorway. We are subsisting on tea and fudgie brownies, and I have knitted myself a cute vaguely germanic cap, which is warm and makes me wish for clothing to impersonate someone out of a Holbein sketch. Given that the rest of the house is rather cold (although it's been holding at around ten degrees above the outside temperature, and a little more in the depths of the cold night, so not too shabby) a surprising amount of cleaning up has been done, since it's not warm enough to hold still. Odd, that. Unfortunately, all this is not particularly helping grauwulf get over his cold.