I received a call from my gas company—let’s call them National Grid.

“Good news!” they said. “Your budget plan is ending!”

Ah yes, the budget plan. That magical system where you pay the same amount every month, so you don’t get surprised… until you get surprised.

Apparently, winter had the audacity to be cold. Real cold. Heat was used. Lots of heat.  New furnace worked overtime. And now, according to their calculations, which I assume were done by a team of highly trained accountants hired from Price-Waterhouse and one very judgmental thermostat, I owe them about $900.

Nine hundred dollars. For warmth. I could have set small piles of cash on fire and at least enjoyed the ambiance.

Meanwhile, in a separate act of chaos, our building in Queens announced that the elevator would be replaced.

Duration: six weeks.

We live on the seventh floor.

Now, for Olympic athletes or mountain climbers, seven flights of stairs might be a light warm-up. For us, at our age, and with my disability, it’s not “exercise”—it could have been “life’s final chapter.” No ambulance service is going to climb seven floors with a stretcher and equipment.

Carrying groceries? Forget it. If I were lucky enough to reach the third floor, which might have taken a day, the frozen foods would have melted and cooked from the heat in the staircase.  More importantly, there’s no bathroom on the third-floor landing.

So, we had to leave.

We considered our options:

• Florida snowbirding—appealing, but involves logistics, planning and Florida. 
• A cruise—absolutely not. 

Let me be clear. I have history with cruise ships. In 1960, the United States Army kindly sent me home from Germany on one.

We hit a hurricane.

Not a “light chop.” Not a “slight swell.” A full-blown hurricane.

Three-plus days of seasickness so profound that I briefly reconsidered my relationship on this earth.

People say, “Oh, modern ships are different! Stabilizers! Luxury! Buffets!”

Listen, I don’t care if the ship is captained by Captain Nemo and floats on a cushion of air on top of the water.

Water moves.

No amount of Dramamine is getting me back on that floating regret machine. I don’t want to know about rings that can be put on different parts of my body, and I’m not a jewelry person.

If I want a “cruise,” I’ll take the Staten Island Ferry. Thirty minutes. If I get sick, I can crawl off and kiss the pavement, which I did after arriving at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

That left one option: our house in Kauneonga Lake.

We’ve had it for 30 years. Lovely place. Quiet. Scenic. Also… not winterized in the way one might prefer when temperatures resemble a cry for help.

But we thought: “Hey! The last two winters were mild. Maybe we’ll luck out!”

So, rather than spending money on a cruise, or Florida, we invested in a new heating system.

We packed up just before the elevator shut down and headed upstate.

And right on cue, winter said:
“Oh, you thought this would be easy? Yeah, right.”

• Below-zero nights 
• Over 30 inches of snow 
• Winds that sounded like they were filing a complaint 

But you know what?

No waves.
No rolling.
No hugging a railing, whispering, “This is how it ends.”

Just snow. And cold. And the occasional moment of staring out the window, wondering if this was all a very elaborate mistake.

Here’s the part nobody expects:

We survived.

Not only that, but we also actually enjoyed it.

There’s something oddly satisfying about conquering winter in your own house. You put on layers, drink something hot, and feel like you’ve outsmarted nature, even though nature is clearly just letting you have this one.

And that $900 gas bill?

A bargain.

Because for $900, I didn’t have to:

• Climb seven flights of stairs daily 
• Relive a hurricane at sea 
• Develop a lifelong relationship with a barf bag 

Instead, I got snow, peace and comforting knowledge that the ground beneath me was not moving.

Some people chase the sun.
Some people chase adventure.

Me?

I’ll take solid ground, a working furnace, and a winter that stays exactly where it belongs—under my feet, not under a boat.