DO YOU HAVE HOME MAINTENANCE NIGHTMARES? I do. I have them at night. When I’m sleeping. Honest to goodness nightmares regarding things that, fortunately, are not nightmares in real life. Dreams tend to disappear (poof!) when you wake up the next morning so I have to write quickly before my faint memories go away. In real life I am recalling that yesterday I was leaning out a window on my stair landing grabbing at a few vines that are on their way toward eating my roof. My dream surrounds the notion of this same window leaking air around the frame. The window is only a few years old and so it is in my dream. Upon further inspection I find that the window is leaning out at a crazy angle toward my neighbors. Daylight and wind pouring in all around it.
Fearsome window | Photo: P Sheehy
That’s bad enough but then I imagine that a small fire has started on some far reach of the second floor or is it the fourth. You know how dreams don’t care about the fact that my house is a mere two stories with a hip roof. We’re reaching for all kinds of stuff and somehow manage to snuff it out before serious damage is done.CABIN FEVER. Maybe I’m coming down with cabin fever. The temperature outside IS dropping to seasonal levels just around freezing. The leaves have been whooshed into the path of the city’s semi-annual cleaning on our side street. But there remain the large black balloons containing more leaves and these want to go to the compost site. So maybe that’s the answer. Get me into the outdoors properly bundled up in a “jacket” (it’s a Minnesota word and I haven’t yet figured out the difference between a jacket and a coat but there is a difference, I’m told by my spouse’s in-laws who are natives). And maybe I should lead my Australian Shepherd around on a leash (or the reverse, I never can tell).
The fall ritual | Photo: P Sheehy
Tags: australian shepherd, cabin fever, hip roof, home maintenance nightmares, minnesota jacket, old houses