Our house has long been toasty on the bottom and cold on top for reasons we've never probed.
In the parlance of the day, we'd shrug, "It is what it is." Though we might have admitted, "What it is, is cold."
As winter settled in, the local listserve urged: Bleed the radiator. Violence solves little. And yet, the task sounded intriguing: Find radiator, insert key, turn left. Air hissed out. After which the radiator was happy to radiate. And what it radiated was heat.
Cold mornings banished with a mere twist of the wrist. Imagine if we'd picked up this trick a decade earlier.
Now we're toasty as tostadas, which made an apt celebratory meal. For the new year, we're revising that tired truism. Maybe: "It is what it is, unless you figure out what's wrong with it and fix it." And then down something delicious.
Not catchy. But effective.
