Rugging Up

Yesterday was warm by late November standards, in the 50s, though very windy. Today the wind died down but the temps fell 20 degrees or more -- so much so that the dusting of snow that fell last night didn’t melt.

So it was good that today the furnace cleaner and inspector, same fellow as last year from the same company, came to clean and inspect the furnace. Just a part of rugging up for winter in these parts. Ann was mystified. Who was this fellow downstairs with the little vacuum and toolbelt? (She wasn’t quite as articulate as that.) He decided that the machine was in good shape, fit for another winter.

Not sure if I’m using “rug up” as it would be used in its native land, Australia. According to the Macquarie Dictionary, it has the literal meaning of wrapping up against the cold. Terms like that have a way of migrating to the figurative, and I can use it that way if I want to, anyway. So I do, occasionally.

I’ve known “rug up” for a long time, ever since I apartment-sat in Manhattan for a few weeks one summer. The woman who lived there had a record collection, including Business as Usual by Men at Work, an Australian band with a few hits in the early ’80s. “Down by the Sea,” a song on side two, wasn’t one of them, but it did contain the lyric:

Yonnies in the wind,
We’re ruggin’ up for winter
Putting out the bins
In cold and windy weather.

I never knew what a “yonnie” was, but “rug up” seemed clear enough. Lately I looked up yonnie, and Macquarie says “a stone, esp. for throwing.” Not sure that makes the lyric any clearer, though throwing rocks into the sea on a windy day is a nice image. But sometimes obscure lyrics should stay obscure.