Sometimes I’m grateful that Ellie is terrified of bad weather—thunder, sure, and wind, definitely. She paces, going from one room to another, most likely trying to find peace. I like to be notified, and she seems attuned to changes in the weather long before they manifest outside my windows and doors.
The problem, as you can imagine, is that she stops by the bed on about every second round of her self-assigned patrol duties, quietly questioning how I can sleep through it. She does it with her eyes, but knows that her wet nose works with a quick, cruel efficiency.
I knew we were due for a blow because it was windy all day, yesterday. Oh, and it’s March. That’s always a clue. I could hear the siding and roof creaking, but this house is low compared to all the others that I’ve lived in, and I feel somewhat assured that the distance between me and the tall trees is adequate to avoid surprise branches tickling my forehead through the window.
The estimates from professionals hovered in the “gusts in the fifties” range, but I’m saying they were higher. Either way, it was loud outside.
The problem is, once I’m awake, I start running wind scenarios through the dusty compass in my head. My bedroom is on the southwest side of the house. I begin to calculate which way the wind is coming from, then I move to the wrinkled plot map of the trees and the cabin in the woods in Washington County, also deep inside my head.
I whisper to no one, in the dark, “I should have taken down that ratty hemlock last fall. This wind is sure to take the top twenty feet off that thing.” It is then that I recalculate and review where my firewood is stacked. Oh, and how far the tarp will be from the pile when I am finally able to get down the ice-covered road.
I share that only to say that, since I was awake anyway, the suddenly arriving Weber gas grill, complete with cover and burger-flipping accouterments, heading northeast from its base of operations on the patio, came to a sudden, metallically magnificent stop about one foot from my window.
I find it’s easier to rise quickly, when startled and terrified, with your eyes already open.
Ellie headed to the bathroom amid a cacophony of claws scraping and slipping on the slick LVP flooring. She was evidently thankful at that time that the little woman in our life who finds comfort in littering the grayish-brown flooring with what we estimate to be hundreds of decorative throw rugs. The traction aspect alone makes the room inviting for an eighty-pound Box-A-Dor.
I digress.
I did not know it was the arrival of the gas grill until I pulled aside the curtain to see it staring up at me, sad and supine, in the sprigs of grass and newly-formed mud that had recently shown up since the snow parted ways with our landscape.
I was disappointed. It was expensive. I’ve had grills that I would have applauded if they left in such a manner, but this one was my first new grill in twenty years. I think it will be fine with a hand-up and a wipe-down.
Being cognizant of giving thanks in all things, I held a silent, mostly-thankful, prayer vigil for the grill cover, sixty-five bucks of cheap black plastic posing as canvas, still there, pinned beneath the wreckage.
I was pleased I wouldn’t be wallowing around in the wet woods today, looking for that.
I didn’t go out just then, nope. I went back to bed for a couple more hours of calculations.
When I did rise, at 0433 (the longest sleep-in for weeks), I let Ellie out to do her business and investigate what caused the stir.
As I write this, the power is out, the generator is on, and the gas grill is still down. I hope your night was more peaceful.
From the Jagged Edge of America, and a couple of days late in celebrating the Ides of March, I remain,
TC
Thanks for your time in reading the missives. Thanks for your support in commenting, subscribing, and for the BuyMeACoffee crowd. For without them, this would not be possible. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, you Irish rascals. tc