Wild Blue Yonder

Rising oil prices have me thinking more and more about rising fuel prices and my 48-mile daily commute.

I've looked into our local Metro Pool, which matches up commuters who want to drive together, www.nuride.com, the trains and even buying a scooter. Working from home is not an option. Since my town lacks a train station, taking a train is a less attractive option for me, while a scooter would only be usable for half the year and also presents safety issues.

Then, in speaking to my neighbors, I discovered that the husband not only works in the same town I do but his office is located just three miles north of my office, on the same highway.

His hours are a little different than mine; he gets out 30 minutes later than I do. (When my summer hours end, his start time will also be 30 minutes earlier than mine.)

I spoke to his wife, who will speak to hubby and let me know if he's interested in car-pooling.

My proposal is that we share rides 4 days a week; he drives 2, i drive 2.

By car-pooling four days a week, we'd both eliminate two days of driving, or reduce our gas usage by 40% a week.

I'm about halfway through reading "Nickel & Dimed, On (Not) Getting by in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich.

I think many here in this forum would enjoy reading this book. The author is a journalist and decided to see for herself whether it really was possible to live on minimum wage, so she went undercover and took jobs as a waitress, nursing home aide, Wal-Mart employee and cleaning lady to experience life on the edge.

From the back cover: "She soon discovered that even the 'lowliest' occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety and surprising generosity - a land of Big Boxes, fast food and a thousand desperate strategies for survival."

Her story is quite an eye-opener. The book was written in 2001 and made the New York Times best-seller list.

As Carolina Bound mentioned in an earlier comment on this book, it's definitely going to make me tip more generously the next time I eat out.

I read somewhere recently about a family living in a very old house that used 800 gallons of heating oil each winter. This seems like an awful lot of heating oil. Curious to see how my energy consumption habits compared, I dug out my old oil bills.

For the last two years, I only used about 380 gallons of oil to heat my 78-year-old house; last year, I used about 70 gallons less than the year before. Last winter was mild, so that undoubtedly helped.

I aim to be on track this winter with the same kind of low usage, perhaps even lower.