The middle of the night. It sounds like someone is rolling
rocks across the wooden floor upstairs. Ed!
What? Go to sleep.
There’s some animal in this room!
Go to sleep.
Probably under the bed! I have never ever had the fear that
there are monsters under my bed, but this time, I am convinced that we’re not
alone up there: with us, there’s something with big claws. It’s not fast moving, but it
is loud!
Please look under the bed!
No. Go to sleep. Probably Isis. Exploring.
No. Go to sleep. Probably Isis. Exploring.
No! Isis is right at this second standing in the doorway
looking at us and wondering about the fuss.
Turn off the light.
My turn to say no. The “thing” hasn’t attacked Isis so I
suppose I’m safe to look. I imagine gashes on my faces as the “thing” surely will
lunge if I get too close. Ever so tentatively, keeping my hands off of the
floor, I look down, below the bed.
Nothing.
Now will you please turn off the light?
I do, but the noise comes back. Okay, so it’s not under the bed. It’s in the wall, the attic, somewhere where there are boulders to roll around with claws.
I do, but the noise comes back. Okay, so it’s not under the bed. It’s in the wall, the attic, somewhere where there are boulders to roll around with claws.
How did it get in?
Through an opening. Ed can be very helpful, but not when you display anxiety about animals in the farmhouse in the middle of the night.
Through an opening. Ed can be very helpful, but not when you display anxiety about animals in the farmhouse in the middle of the night.
Eventually, the animal settles and we do too, but there are
many hours in between and we spend them discussing houses, basements, attics –
a whole “this old house” episode’s worth of talk, between 2 and 4 in the
morning.
Friday. I wake to a reminder that the next season is fall.
The day is crisp. Long pants weather. First time since we’ve returned from
Europe. Do I like this return to cool? Do I? Well now, it’s not as if I get to
decide.
farmer Lee, picking sunflowers for the market tomorrow
I go to my office for Part I of the annual great cleaning
project. Today I throw away as much as possible. Thousands of
pages of exams, papers, lectures for the shredder. Anything with dust on it.
Out it goes. I have a small office and this forces choices. As I wheel my old
chair from one end of the little room to the next, I think – this is a hell of a
dysfunctional chair. It has no support. It is wobbly. I bought it, used, before
I was even employed at the Law School (so more than two dozen years ago) and I
took it with me to my office in part because I didn’t know what else to do with
it. And it has stayed.
I’d grown jealous at seeing the proliferation of chairs that
are actually kind to your back, chairs that can be adjusted this way and that
and suddenly I think – I’m getting old. The back is to be protected. And so I
ask the powers that be:
May I please have an office chair?
Instantly: Yes, of course.
That simple! For twenty years it never struck me that I
could just ask!
Suddenly I am excited about the space on the bookshelf for
the new semester, about the prospect of a functioning chair, about the coming
of fall. For a little while, I accept the sudden slap and shake, telling me that
a 'summer off' is just that – a 'summer off.' One season out of four.
In the late afternoon we resume our (suddenly precious)
summer routines. At Paul’s café I
write and Ed naps.
I spent many a sleepless night listening to critters scampering above me, in the walls, under the roof, and it nearly drove me totally insane. Finally, we had a new roof put on and there have been no critters since that time. I think there was an opening in the old roof somewhere but with the new roof, all sealed up. I hope. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteoh, those sounds in the attic or walls are so creepy....reminds me of our rat problem in florida...now solved. beautiful sunflower photo and Ed - priceless!
ReplyDeleteSpooky! One hopes Ed will come to your defense if he hears the actual attack of the noisy critter. I close and lock the doors of my house at night, even in this hot weather CA is having, even though my screen doors are security doors and I would love to have the cool night air circulate. But then I hear a thump on the deck in the darkness, or the inside cats go on alert, and the door gets closed.
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived in southern Illinois we heard an animal walking around under the floors for a few days, and then discovered that it was getting into the kitchen at night and looking for snacks. A friend advised us to set out a rat trap. We heard the trap go snap in the night, and then, to our horror, heard an animal coming toward the bedroom, dragging a trap behind it! It was an opposum, who escaped into the crawl space through a loose spot in the door that leads to the bathroom plumbing, rat trap and all. Now we had an injured animal under the floorboards! The next day we could hear labored breathing coming through various floor vents. It was ghastly. We were on the verge of calling an exterminator to extricate the possum, when the breathing stopped. Now we feared we had a dead animal under the floor. But apparently the poor thing found his or her way out of the house, because there was never any smell. Yuk - a really icky experience.
ReplyDelete