home ownership – The View from a Drawbridge

Rebooting Oneself

Decades ago, I was walking my dog after a hard rain and I slipped on a wet, grassy slope. My feet flew above my head. I went down hard. I mean, really, really hard. It knocked the wind out of me. As I helplessly slid down the hill, everything went bright white. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, and for a second there I had the strangest feeling that my brain was completely shut off. At that moment, I didn’t know how to see, breathe, or move.

That experience only lasted a second or two, but I’ll never forget it. And I definitely won’t forget the 9 months of pure agony I went through in its aftermath, while getting the resulting herniated disc diagnosed and treated. Good times.

As a friend of mine says, rebooting your computer can fix a multitude of sins. But a personal reboot such as the one I just described is no fun at all. I do not recommend it.

Unexpected catastrophic events can definitely make you do a reboot in terms of reevaluating your life, and they can cause you to change its trajectory. Death. Divorce. Job loss. Natural disasters. Totaling your car.

But these aren’t the only kinds of reboots I’ve had in my life. The intentional ones are fantastic. Driving across country for a new job in a new state, and therefore completely remodeling my life, was a reboot par excellence. So was buying my house and moving in. Vacations are mini-reboots, and I would argue that they’re really critical for mental and physical health.

I also consider purging toxic people from your life to be a reboot of a kind. You really don’t realize what a negative influence someone has been on you until they are gone. It’s like taking off a shoe that’s two sizes too small. Feels. So. Good.

If you have a chance to voluntarily reboot, even if it’s something as minor as a haircut or a manicure, I encourage you to do so. I also fervently hope that there are no involuntary reboots in your future. But the rain falls on us all sooner or later. May you weather the storms and revel in the sunshine, dear reader.

Reboot

Here’s a good reboot: Take the day off. Read my book. http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5

Ingenuity

Ever since I saw one at a friend’s house, I’ve wanted a rain chain. They are artistic replacements for gutter downspouts. They turn needed water removal into a beautiful water feature. What a delightful idea.

I had to hold off on getting one for three years, because during that time I wasn’t a home owner. Now that I am, my rain chain was my first purchase. I figured I earned it with all the home buying and moving stress.

Most rain chain instructions tell you to drill a hole in your gutter and hang it there, but if I did that, the water would splash all over my patio. What to do… what to do…

I think one of the best things about not being a professional handyman is that I get to think outside the box. I can take risks. If I screw up, no one gets hurt except me. Ingenuity is a wonderful thing.

So, rather than hang it directly below my gutter, I decided to extend it outward. So I drilled a hole in the SIDE of the gutter, just large enough for a length of 1 inch PVC pipe. But this is a narrow, flimsy gutter, and the rain chain is rather heavy, so I decided to extend the pipe on through to the other side of the gutter for extra strength.

Now, before sliding that pipe in, I made some modifications to it. I capped off one end and sealed it with silicone. On the part of the pipe that would be inside the gutter, I drilled a bunch of holes so the water could get into the pipe. I cut a slot into the end of the pipe so I could hang the rain chain hanger from it, and the water would fall on the chain. Then I slid the pipe through, put the hanger in the slot, sealed and siliconed a cap on the other end, and put silicone around the holes I had cut into the gutter. Then I hung the chain.

Now, as you can see, in the picture below, the chain will not be hanging on the patio. But I didn’t want the water to roll back onto the concrete, either, so I got an old terrarium bowl I had lying around, dug a hole, and placed it there at an extreme angle, so the water will go outward. Then I filled it up with some gravel that I stole from the driveway of the place I used to rent. (Shhhhh…)

Yeah I know there are ready-made water diverters that I could have used, but they aren’t as pretty.

Will it work? We shall see. Here’s how it looks when I tested it with my water hose on a sunny day. (And the water now makes a lovely tinkling sound.)

And here’s how it looks when I stand at my back door.

Not bad, huh? I’m rather proud of myself. And I’m actually looking forward to rainy season now!

_______________________

Like the way my weird mind works? Then you’ll enjoy my book! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5

Going Batty

So, it’s my second night in my new house. It’s 3a.m. I’m sound asleep. And then I hear this fluttering near my head. A moth? A really big moth? Then it zooms past my head 3 times and leaves the room. A bat.

A bat! Mommy! My lovable yet useless dog is cowering in the bed with me. I leap up and close the bedroom door. At least we’re safe. Sort of. But now the bat has the run of the rest of the house. Great. How did it get in? Better yet, how the hell do I get it out?

Times like these, I wish I had a man in my life. But then, I’ve yet to have a man in my life who was even willing to kill a spider for me, so there’s that. But moral support would be good. Someone to bear witness to the battle ahead, at the very least.

I boot up my computer. No one is awake on Facebook. I start Googling “bat in my house” and get all these horror stories about rabies. But cooler scientific heads will tell you that you have a much better chance of being struck by lightning than being bitten by a rabid bat.

I actually like bats. Ironically, just the day before I ordered a bat house for my back yard. Bats keep bugs under control, and are also pollinators. We need them. I just don’t want to have one as a roommate.

Nearly two hours have gone by. I finally see a friend get on line. He’s unwilling to hop on the next plane, but he talks me down from the ceiling. He gives me a pep talk. He makes me laugh. Now I’m ready to deal with the bat. That, and I really, really, really have to pee by this point.

I wrap myself in a blanket. I don’t know why. For comfort? And I grab a second blanket in hopes of catching the bat. I crack the door open and peek out. Nothing. I make a run for the bathroom. Sweet relief. Then I start looking around the rest of the house. But the sun is starting to rise, so the bat has probably gone God knows where.

And sure enough, it’s hiding. Lurking, like some evil Trumpian immigrant, not to be trusted. My house is still in chaos, full of moving boxes. Plenty of hidey holes. I’m hoping he left the way he came. (I suspect it was via the chimney.)

By now the sun is fully up, and my house feels like my own again. But I blocked off the chimney. Believe that. Now one more unpleasant task lies ahead. I peek in the attic.

Yup. Sure enough. There’s a colony in there. I can hear them chittering. (One wonders how the inspector missed that, but oh well.)

So I call a bat removal company. And they tell me that bats are protected, and this is their breeding season, so they can’t remove them until late August when the babies are big enough to fly. Oh great. The joys of home ownership.

So they’re up there, shitting in my attic, putting me at risk for histoplasmosis for the next two months. And I had work to do up there. I guess I have a valid excuse for procrastinating now.

I’m relieved to say that since that night I haven’t seen any more bats in the part of my house that I insist upon occupying. I watch them fly out of a crack in my chimney every evening at dusk. They’re beautiful to behold. I just wish they’d go somewhere else.

Oh, what a night. And did I mention that this was my one day to sleep in? Sigh.

Brown_bats

Portable gratitude. Inspiring pictures. Claim your copy of my first collection of favorite posts! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5