Because company is coming...

I recently experienced for the first time something that many of you may have done, perhaps more than once. I went through the ordeal of washing my kitchen rug. This isn't a little thing that lies in front of the sink, you understand, but a full-sized rug that covers the entire floor. In fact, it's really too large for the kitchen, so one end is kept folded under.

I decided to clean it in preparation for my sister Ellen's visit, the first week of October. Ellen keeps her house spotlessly clean, so I knew I would have to make some effort to clean this place up. I don't mean tidy it up -- it's generally tidy, because it's so small clutter would make me crazy -- but really clean. Get all the dust bunnies out from beneath the bed, actually dust the furniture, that sort of thing. And wash the kitchen rug, which I've had for about 15 years...and have never had cleaned.

I had at first hoped to have someone come in and clean both this rug, and the red, fake-Oriental in the living room; but none of the cleaning places I called offer that service. They'll clean carpets, yes, but not rugs. I also called the cleaners I use and the woman there said they do do rugs, but it's very expensive (she warned), and I would have to get it from my house to the cleaners, as they did not pick up. The rug is 9x12, and heavy wool; I knew it would be very difficult for Melody the Weakling to get it rolled up, out to, and into her car; then the same in reverse.

So I decided to rent a machine from a rental place down the road. The woman showed me how to use it, since i'd never done this before. The actual process of applying the soapy water to the rug -- and later, applying clear rinse water -- was relatively simple, though not quite so simple as she insisted it would be. The main problem was that the machine would grab hold of the edge of the rug and pull it back as I moved backward with the machine -- a problem inherent in doing this to a rug, rather than to a carpet which is tacked down. The result was that I simply could not clean to the very edge. But everything else about the procedure was anything but simple, or easy.

Just getting the rug ready to be cleaned was something of an ordeal. The rental place woman had told me I should vacuum the rug three times. Since I don't have a vacuum-cleaner, I had to sweep the thing to within an inch of its life. And in case you're wondering, yes, I do usually sweep my rugs to clean them. Every three or four months I borrow the vacuum from the library and give them a good vacuuming. However, I didn't feel like making the drive all the way back to the library to borrow the vacuum, having already made the drive twice that day.

Before I could even do the sweeping I had to shove the extremely heavy trunk that normally sits at one end of the rug, up against the counter that separates the kitchen from the living/dining room, out of the way, into the living room. I had also had to ask the fellow next door if he and his son-in-law could come lift up the stove, because one edge of the rug was under the front edge of said stove. Roger's s-in-l wasn't home at the time, but Roger came in and managed to pull the rug out by himself. (And if you're wondering why I didn't ask him to help me move the trunk, the two events happened two days apart.)

Even the actual sweeping was difficult and awkward because I kept having to move the rug around to get at all parts of it (a reminder: it's too big to completely open out on the kitchen floor.) And, as I said, it's a heavy rug.

Then putting the soapy water into the machine was a hassle, because the lid of the opening where you poured it in would not stay up. Truly a case of terrible design. I had to use my elbow/back to hold up the lid, while I tried to pour a gallon of water into this narrow opening, essentially with one hand. Naturally water got all over the place, besides in the opening, so naturally I did some healthy swearing. This had to be gone through four times, you understand: soapy water, then rinse water, when I did half the rug the first night, soapy, then rinse, when I did the other half the following morning. In between was lugging the heavy water container out to the back deck to pour the contents over the railing.

But at least, and at last, it's done! And the rug really does look much better, the colors brighter. The main background is a deep green, with a medallion of pink and beige flowers in the very center, the same motif on a wide border all around the edge. I have few material possessions that mean a lot to me, but my two rugs are among those few.

Every time something like this comes up -- like putting in/taking out the air conditioners (that's going to have to be done soon, too) -- I feel the difficulty of living alone, and do long for a "man around the house." Ah, well.

Eeeeck!

Well, no sooner do I brag to my friend Carolyn (with whom I stayed overnight when I went to Boston recently for my friend David's birthday party) that I had been very lucky in not having problems with bugs in my rented bungalow, in the four years I have lived there...except, I said, for the very occasional spider in the bathtub...than I find myself invaded by spiders-in-the-bathtub. At least one a day for the past few days -- yesterday it was two, a mama spider and a baby. Where are they coming from?! There are no obvious cracks or holes. Carolyn had said she thought they might come down through the pipes. But if they were hiding out in the pipes, seems like they'd occasionally get washed out into the tub while I was showering, or rather, during that period of time when the water is rushing out of the regular tap, while I'm playing with the hot and cold nozzles, getting the temperature just right before switching to shower mode. This has not thus far happened.

I know all about spiders being "good" bugs, because they consume other bugs, but I have a rule: you can do your thing, but stay out of my sight! Crawling around in the bathtub is definitely breaking the rule, and death is the punishment. Spiders I've caught in there in the past I've usually finished off with a shoe, but these lately have been big guys (or gals); no way I was going to squash them with a shoe, then have to clean out the squashed remains. So I've resorted to canned ant-and-roach spray, which I've had forever (when I lived in my wonderful cabin-on-the-lake, one unwonderful thing about it were the ants that hung out in the kitchen), and which seems to work o.k. on spiders. They just curl up in a ball to die, making their removal -- with a paper towel -- a mess-free operation.

I'm sorry, but I can't be "green" -- or Buddhist -- about bugs. And being greeted by another one in the tub is one of those times -- like putting in/taking out air conditioners, or trying to set up a Christmas tree, or investigating scary sounds at night -- when I sure do miss having a man around the house.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

Since I live alone, and don't usually have guests at Christmas, I frequently do not put up a tree. But this year my brother is coming from New Mexico for a visit, so I definitely needed a tree. And any tree this girl has has to be real.

But here was my problem, or rather the first of what were to prove numerous problems: where to put a tree in my tiny house? I had one the year my mother spent mid-November to mid-December with me, and again the following year, but in both instances my living room was set up differently. Once I discovered one of my book-cases was sitting over a heating vent (how had I missed that fact when I moved in?), which was not good for either my books or the temperature of the room in winter, things had to be re-arranged. Now in the only possible space I didn't have a bookcase that it was no big deal if it was partially covered by the branches of a Christmas tree, but rather the small table where I eat my meals. Couldn't very well cover that up. I finally decided I would just have to get a tree small enough to stand on top of my desk -- that was simply the only horizontal surface available.

So I drove way out to Longfellow's Greenhouses in Manchester, thinking that would be the most likely place to find a really small tree. But the only small trees they had -- which were actually the perfect size -- were live trees, and cost $65. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for such a small tree, especially one that I didn't know what I'd do with until spring. So the next day I stopped at the tree lot I pass every day on my way to work, with the sign out front that touts "All Maine Trees." Frankly, in this state full of every kind of evergreen (it is the Pine Tree state!), I can't imagine any tree lot having anything other than Maine trees, but oh, well.

The smallest tree on the lot seemed like it would be small enough, but when I got it home I saw it was definitely too big to fit on my desk. Well, I could hardly take it back; I would worry about where the heck to put it after I got it into its stand. But that proved a task beyond my powers. It simply is not possible to screw in the screws that hold the trunk in place, while holding the tree upright. After doing a lot of screaming and swearing, which I acknowledged to myself was hardly in the Christmas spirit, I went next door and asked Bill the Drunk if he could perhaps help. Note that I don't really know that Bill is a drunk; it just seems like he's all but stumbling drunk whenever I talk to him (or possibly stoned) -- he's frequently out in the driveway having a cigarette when I'm coming or going, evidently banned from the house when he smokes. He's nice enough, but a little unsteady on his feet. Actually, when I went over there I was hoping one of the other fellows who lives in the house would be there, but as usual it was just Bill, so Bill is what I got. He held the tree while I struggled with the screws, but we could not get that damn tree to stand straight.

Finally I sent Bill on his way, and called Earl. Earl is the fellow who hauls the library's old newspapers and cardboard to the recycling center, and he has also traditionally done whatever kind of "muscle" work I needed done around the library. He is no longer young, but is determined to prove that has not affected his muscle power one whit. Though I sometimes fear he will drop dead of a stroke or heart attack on me -- all while talking a blue streak -- I find him enormously helpful. And he has helped me personally a couple of times with other Woman Living Along problems.

However, as luck would have it, Earl was not home. So in desperation I called the one male member of my staff, and asked if he could possibly help me set up my Christmas tree. With his usual good grace Bob drove from Hallowell to my place, did his best to help me, but finally agreed with me that the big problem was most likely my broken tree stand (did I mention my tree stand was broken?) So while Bob went to have lunch with his wife, who happens to work in Gardiner, I went to good ol' Harvey's Hardware and bought a new stand; Bob came back after lunch and we were able to get the tree up, and more or less straight. While he was gone I had decided where the tree would go: in the kitchen! The kitchen is separated from the living room (where I also eat) by only a narrow, waist-high counter cum built-in bookcase, so the tree would be plainly visible. And the only things taking up space on the kitchen side of the counter were a big box of bubble wrap, and the big cooler my mother gave me to carry food in when I was driving from Texas to Maine. Both could easily go down to the basement (in fact, I asked myself, why hadn't I don't that before?)

So, success at last. I was so worn out, I decided decorating would have to wait for the weekend.

The end of the lawn mower saga

I have reported lawn mower adventures in earlier Notes (May 11 & 14, 2010). I did take the mower with the wandering knob back, waited forever while the fellow at Lowes' first tried to put on another knob that might not come unscrewed while I was mowing, and finally dug up another mower "out back" (the one I had purchased had been the display model, supposedly the last of its kind). The reason this one was "out back" was due to "missing parts," but when I said "Uh-oh," the guy assured me it was just the grass catcher, and since I had the one from the original mower I was all set.

So Mr. Lowes helps me get the new mower back into my car (I had had to have the woman next door help me get it in for the outgoing trip, as it is simply too heavy and unwieldy for me to manage alone), and when I got home I eased it awkwardly to the ground (that I can do on my own), and wheeled it down the slope to my back yard, and around to the basement door. In the basement I plugged it in so it could charge, and the next day I wheeled it out and started mowing the lawn.

And the knob fell off.

Well, hell. Obviously it was a design flaw. I was both disgusted and depressed. Was this thing made in Thailand? (See discussion of foreign-made air-conditioners, in my very first Note of June 8, 2008). Well, my lawn was terribly scraggly; I had to go ahead and mow the damn thing, trying to keep an eye on the knob, so as to catch it before it came completely unscrewed and fell off. Frequent pauses while mowing to reach down and tighten the screw. And a couple of times I failed to notice, and the knob fell off, and I only realized it because the handle started coming apart. So then I would have to go back and search in the grass for the knob.

And, as had been the case before, it took me three sessions to get the lawn completely mowed; I simply was not up to doing it all at once. Then I went into a blue funk, trying to decide what to do. Write an irate letter to the company? (Black and Decker, by the way. I thought they had good products!) I've long since learned that writing to a company can be very effective, but really, what could they do for me, except tell me to go get a replacement...which would have the exact same problem.

Should I take the damn thing back to Lowes' and just get my money back? Or should I go to the hardware store and see if I could get a knob that would stay on? Did they sell loose knobs at hardware stores? I really did like the mower, except for this problem, and really liked the idea of not having to pay someone to do my lawn.

My indecision was a decision in itself; I did nothing for several weeks. My landlord's son mowed my lawn for me once without my even asking; I later realized it was probably because John was again showing the house next door to prospective renters, and would prefer the lawn that lay in front of the parking area not look like a meadow.

Finally, the day came when I really had to mow my lawn again. Girding my loins for the Battle of the Wandering Knob, I got the front lawn mowed, and part of the back, when one of those times I failed to catch the knob before it fell off it managed to fall off in the path of the mower. And crunch, crunch, no more knob.

And thus, my decision was made for me. I looked at my receipt and saw that the 30-day no-questions-asked return period was long since past. But I called Lowes' anyway, and asked for a "manager with lots of power," and told the guy my tale of woe. And he said, "Well, m'am if you want to bring it back, you certainly can." "And get my money back?" "Yes, m'am."

Yay!!! I was out the door in a flash, trying to trundle the mower back up the slope to my car, with a handle that was trying to come apart in my hands. And then, of course, I couldn't get it into the car, and of course there was no one home next door. Well, a woman's gotta do what she's gotta do, so I walked two houses up, knocked on the door, and asked the middle-aged lady who came to the door if there were someone with muscle in the house who could help me put a lawn mower in my car. She told me no one else was home, but she'd help me. And she did. And I took the damn thing back, and got my money back, and that's the end of my trying to do something I didn't want to be doing anyway.

Oh, that maintenance

I'm so happy! I did it! Actually, I did several things. First I made the difficult decision to actually spring for a lawn mower. I didn't really want to do this. I hate to mow the lawn. It does not fit my self-image. None of my self images, not the Struggling Writer one, or the Starving Librarian one, or the Delicate Flower one. When Micheal and I lived in southern Louisiana, in the big, beautiful brick house out in the country with the acre of lawn, I often had to mow the lawn -- on a riding mower, no less -- because M. would be off-shore for at least three weeks at a time, and the growing season in southern Louisiana does not permit any lawn to go three weeks without being cut. And I would feel so mortified, riding around on that damn miniature tractor, with the occasional car/pickup/18-wheeler flashing by on our country road.

So, I didn't want to have to buy a lawn mower, and spend an hour or so every week or so mowing the lawn. But neither did I want to drop $50 every time I had someone do it, as I have had to do in summers past. I either tended to go too long between "haircuts," resulting in a really shitty looking lawn too much of the time, or if I left it up to the "barbers," found myself having to pay for a weekly haircut, which I simply could not afford.

Then there was the question of what kind of lawn mower to get. I saw some on sale at the local hardware store (which as a matter of fact was the impetous for my beginning to seriously think about this), but not knowing the first thing about lawn mowers, didn't know whether these were a good value. I did contact the fellow who volunteers to mow our lawn at the library, to see if he would be willing to go with me and check them out. He has mowed my lawn for me once (we lugged the library's mower to my house so he could do it), and now I told him that if he were interested, he could mow my lawn occasion-ally for pay. He seemed interested in the second proposal, and indicated his willingness to help me mower-shop, but that was the last I heard from him.

There was also the fact that I didn't really want to have to deal with a gas mower. Getting gasoline from a service station, making sure the mower has enough fuel, and...most of all!...having to pull that damn starter rope to get it going. I've never had good luck with those things, yanking and yanking away, getting nothing but sputtering for my efforts. When Micheal and I lived in Abilene, and had a smaller lawn to mow than the one in Louisiana, we also had an electric push mower. This was great in terms of starting -- just plug it in and turn it on -- but keeping the cord out of harm's way was a big drag. So now I was thinking how I would really prefer to have an electric mower, but really didn't want to have to fight with an extension cord.

Well, my lawn was starting to look like an absolute meadow; I knew I had to take some kind of action, either call the professional barbers, nag at Earl to help me pick out a mower, and then get him to use it, or at the very least get one that I, in a pinch, could use myself. I knew that, whatever a mower might cost me, it would soon pay for itself, in money saved from paying professional barbers (even if I paid Earl, he would take no more than $20 from me, still a savings).

So I started calling around, asking if places had electric mowers. The fellow at Sears, the first place I called (after the hardware store, which had only gas-powered), said, "Plug-in or cordless?" and my ears perked up. "There are cordless electric mowers?" "Yep." So I got the price there (a little steep), and after that, all my calls were for cord-less electric mowers. And I finally found one that was $70 cheaper than Sears' version, at Lowe's. And I went and bought it, and lugged it home, and then called when I discovered there was no instruction manual (I had purchased a display model, as it was the only one at that price left, but I was assuming there were instructions tucked in there somewhere, which proved not to be the case), and I waited three days for the manual that the fellow I talked to said he would send me, and then I went back to Lowes, demanding a manual, and finally getting one for what I suspected was the newer model, which proved to be the case, but even so I managed to figure out what was what with my model, and get the battery charged, and get the thing started, and darned if I didn't get my entire front lawn and part of the back mowed this afternoon, after I got home from work.

The Delicate Flower did it!

My kingdom for a shoveler

I'm not ready! This is what I said a couple of days ago (Friday, Nov. 6th) when I woke up to snow on the ground. The day before had been bad enough, when there were snow flurries as I was leaving for work. I made a squawking sound when I saw those. And they recurred off and on throughout the day, though there wasn't much sticking. But overnight the dang stuff stuck, and there was at least an inch standing up along the railing of my back deck, when I looked out my kitchen window Friday morning.

I really do like snow, but unfortunately snow means shoveling; for this lady who is no longer young, a back-breaking proposition. And I don't just have to shovel a path from my door to the car, and then shovel away what both nature and the snowplows have deposited behind my car, all too often I have to shovel the walks at the library, too. Officially we have someone to keep the walks clear, but last year he did a lousy job. What he would most often do was come very early in the morning, and use his snowplow. But there would still be a layer of snow -- it takes a shovel to get down to the concrete. He might put down some ice-melt, but that needs to be shoveled away within a half hour or so, or the softened snow just freezes again. And if it continued to snow, by the time we opened, at either 10 a.m. (Monday & Wednesday), or 2 p.m. (Tuesday, Thursday & Friday) there would be additional snow that I would have to go out and shovel away. And yes, of course, I talked to Jeff about this, more than once. When I told him that what was important was that the walks be genuinely clear at the time we opened, he insisted that he had to come earlier, if it was a heavy snowfall, or his plow couldn't cut through the accumulated snow. "Then you need to come back later, to do a follow-up," I said. And a few times he did come back -- for an additional charge -- but even then he wouldn't be out there applying the necessary muscle power; he would just make another swipe with his damn machine.

Get somebody else, I hear someone say? This is my third snow clearer in four years. The first one I contracted with did a good job when he showed up, but he was totally unreliable about showing up. He always had excuses. I got tired of the whining, and the fact that I was having to do so much shoveling, an omen of things to come, Had I But Known. The fellow I found the next year started out so gung-ho -- he and his men were out there with shovels, after using the snowplow -- but by midway through the winter it was the same old song. And when I called him for the following year -- despite my misgivings -- he seemed to have gone out of business; I got no call-back.

You would think people dedicated to clearing walks of snow would be thick on the ground in Maine, but you would be wrong. Guys with snowplows on the front of their trucks, eager to clear parking lots, people's driveways, private roads, they're pretty easy to find. But guys who will get out and swing a shovel, no indeed. And even the snowplow guys are, as all of the above indicates, not terribly reliable. As far as my personal situation goes, I have thought of putting up a notice at the Gardiner library, saying "Snow shoveler wanted, weekdays that it snows (M&W, snow cleared by 9 a.m., T,Th&F, by 10:30). Note that this is not a job for a snowplow; the space has to be shoveled." I don't know that the library bulletin board is the best place to find such an animal, if such an animal exists. It couldn't be a kid because they are all off for school by 7 o'clock. An out-of-work Joe Blow with a strong back?

I think I'll try it. Heck, maybe I should try it for the library...

The annual ordeal

Well, I knew it was that time again. Time to put the air conditioners in. Last year I did it on June 8th and was very glad I did because the hot, sticky weather hit the following day. This year I was spared the necessity of performing this onerous task until this past weekend, due to the unusually cool weather (highs only in the 60s), with seemingly endless rain, that we've had for the past few weeks (this soggy weather is, by the way, really getting us Mainers down. Enough already.) But on Thursday, the 25th, the temperature soared into the 70s and very high humidity (the true killer) struck; it was even warmer on Friday. Since my little box of a house, with its poor insulation and no shade trees, quickly becomes a sweat box in hot, humid weather, I knew there could be no more procrastinating.

The first problem is getting the two units up from the basement. They are so heavy I'm doing good to wrestle them out of their boxes and up onto a counter (the one that goes in the kitchen window) or onto a trunk (the one that goes in the study window), where I will attach their little accordion side panels; forget carrying them out the basement door, around to and up the back stairs and through the back door to their appointed resting places. In case you are wonder-ing, it is not possible to bring them directly up the interior basement stair because that is too narrow for anything bigger than a bread box.

Last year my landlord's teenaged son carried the boxes up for me, but this year I decided to see if I could take advantage of the accumulation of young manhood living next door to me. The young man who answered the door, and offered his services, is the same one who regularly clears away all the snow on that side of the parking area that goes with that house – even though four to five cars park there, he seems to be the official shoveler – and who has occasionally cleared the snow from behind my car, as well.

After the affable Arlen lugs the a.c.s up for me – impressing upon me, yet again, the dramatic difference in physical strength between even the most whimpy-looking male, and your average female – and after the aforementioned wrestling on my part to get the units de-boxed and up on a surface where I could work on them, the real fun began. Screwing on the side panels. Which had me swearing mightily last year, but seemed to go much more easily this year, at least on the first panel. But then when I'm on screw number two of panel number two it suddenly strikes me that the panel is backwards. Oh, damn! I've put them on the wrong sides!

So I get to unscrew the two screws I'd just screwed, as well as the four screws on the first side panel, and start again. But now I'm struggling and swearing just as I did last year, because I'm fighting the interference of the panel itself, in trying to get the screws in the holes, and get them sufficiently screwed. I keep muttering, 'This makes no sense; it shouldn't be this hard; this makes no sense!'

In exasperation I go looking for the instruction booklet, which I haven't seen in years. Not in my Important Papers folder, or my Helpful Information folder (which includes such things as how to spell shih tzu, which I can never remember, instructions on how to tie a tie, and a sari, and yes, owner's manuals for various items, one of which I no longer even have...but not for the air conditioners). I look and look at the panels, trying to determine which way they really should be facing, bemoaning my utter lack of visualization skills (this is the hole where the screw that attaches to the window frame goes, but will it work better if this side of the hole is against the wood, or that side?)

I finally decide to go with my instincts – it really should not be that difficult to attach the side panels – and I undo the first side panel yet again; put the original one back on, attach the second panel, and throw the damn thing out the window. Well, you know what I mean.

More domestic dilemmas

Last week I had someone in to put dead bolts on the back door, and the door that leads from the basement to the outside. Ever since my scare of a couple of months back, when I thought someone had gotten into my basement, I've wanted to do this. I realized that although, in that particular instance, there had been no home invasion, there could be, without great difficulty, because the locks on both doors were the kind burglars are always using credit cards to unlock in the movies.

I now feel much more secure. But that isn't my domestic dilemma. While he was here, the locksmith told me he thought the rather floppy tree that stands beside the steps that lead down from my little deck is poison sumac. I found this hard to believe because I thought poison sumac grew in bushes, and it also seemed rather incredible that my landlord would have poison sumac plants growing around the house (besides that tree, there are a number of trees-in-the-making below the deck, crowding around that door to the basement).

Checking online, I find that poison sumac does grow into trees, as well as shrubs. And the leaves certainly do look like the fluttering leaves on the plants in question. But I also find that there are non-poisonous versions of sumac, and now I'm hoping that that is what I have. But how to be sure? Last year I cut away some of the branches that were making it difficult to get up and down the back stairs, but I wore my leather gloves to do that work, as I always do. So my hands did not come into contact with the leaves. Presumably, if they had, and there was no adverse reaction to the contact, I could rest assured that this plant – which does a nice job in the summer of helping to break up what would otherwise be a rather severe facade – was one of the innocuous forms of sumac. But I don't care to experiment with bare hands!

And then there are the slugs! Nasty creatures, that destroy the leaves on the plants in the flower beds to either side of my tiny front stoop. I found a book at the library that told me spreading sawdust or bran (surely a rather expensive alternative) would discourage the varmints. But, the book warns, these prophylactic measures must be reapplied after it rains. For the past two weeks it has done very little but rain – indeed, we Mainers are beginning to fear we are in for another soggy summer like the one we had last year – so these are obviously not very satisfactory solutions for my problem. The book also suggests just picking them off as you see them, and dropping them into a pail of salty water to end their miserable little lives. Ugg. Not even with leather gloves on.

All this gardening stuff is not in my bailiwick. Having to keep up the yard is the one real drawback to living in a house, as far as I am concerned. And Starving Librarians are hard-pressed to afford people to come and do it for them. Yes, this is another time it would be nice to Have a Man Around the House...

Fear

The fact that I found myself being so frightened the other night when I thought there was someone in my basement, got me to thinking about being afraid. I mentioned that I've always tended to be afraid when alone in a house (as opposed to an apartment). Now why is that? Actually, there are two questions there: why frightened in a house but not an apartment, and why frightened at all?

Well, I think I answered the first question in my last note: in an apartment there are people all around, people who would hear should you start screaming, should furniture start getting thrown around as you try to fight off your attacker. In a house there's all that space between you and your neighbors. You're essentially trapped in your own little box with whatever the danger is.

But as to the fear itself, what, exactly, am I afraid of? Being murdered in my bed? While I'm not afraid of death, I suppose I am afraid of violence. I'm afraid of being physically hurt. Quite literally I am afraid of a crazed "ax murderer," or someone with a knife. Getting hacked or stabbed, whether or not it's to the death, has got to hurt! And one doesn't, somehow, think of home invaders as just coming in and shooting people, quick, clean.

I've never in my life watched one of those Friday the 13th movies, in which teenagers or lone females are first terrorized, then slashed to death by some manically cackling fiend. But I've seen the occasional brief clip, and I've assimilated, the way we do all kinds of cultural knowledge, what they're about, the gist of them. These are way unlikely scenarios that, nonetheless, suggest unpleasant possibilities. Once the mind has had a possibility suggested to it, particularly a possibility that would negatively impact the Self, it's extremely difficult to wipe that possibility from the mind (and why is that? I suppose because self-protection is such a high priority for the organism. My psychologist friends will have to tell me...)

Like every other woman, I'm afraid of being raped, although it's not the sexual congress I'm afraid of, it's the violence that would inevitably accompany it. Rape is certainly a much more likely scenario for a woman living alone than being hacked to death. I am not physically strong, could not successfully fight off an adrenalin-charged male, not unless I could get a good grip on his balls. So I'm afraid of suddenly finding myself at some creep's mercy. Some creep with a knife.

But even when I was quite young, and had no inkling of slashers or rapists, I would be afraid when, for example, my parents would go out for the evening, and leave me in charge of my younger brothers and sisters (the youngest I ever was when this took place was 14; that's what I mean by "very young"). The least unfamiliar sound would spook me. And there what I think I was fearing was the unknown. What – or who – is making that sound? If I don't know I can't prepare myself, can't know if I'm equipped to deal with it. I don't want to be unpleasantly surprised! I usually supposed it was either a burglar or a peeping Tom, and felt ill-equipped to deal with either one.

This fear of the unknown of course accounts for the very common fear of death. We don't know what lies beyond death. Will we be equipped to deal with it? Do unpleasant surprises await us? Those of us who are very religious may, indeed, be convinced that we do know, and that "knowledge" may give us courage in the face of death. But for the rest of us – and I suspect even for the faithful, in fleeting, unguarded moments – there is this sense of an abyss that we would be stepping into. The fires of hell, with eternal pain and suffering? That's what I was brought up to believe awaited non-believers, and once an unpleasant possibility has been suggested to the mind...

Or simply non-being? And if the latter...what's so bad about non-being? Nothing to deal with there. No coping necessary.

No, it's not death that's the scary part. It's the getting there.

Home invasion

Two nights ago, in the middle of the night, I had to call the police. I honestly thought there was someone walking around in my basement. My basement is on a level with my backyard – down a considerable slope from my very small front yard – and there is a door to the outside. Naturally I keep that door locked, but locks never deterred a determined burglar (or ax murderer). After a couple of minutes of listening, sure that what I was hearing was not the usual creaking of my little wooden house, or anything produced by the fairly brisk wind outside, I leapt from my bed and made for the telephone.

Yay 9-1-1. An instant person who doesn't waste time: "What is your emergency?" I told him my address and said, "I think there's someone down in my basement." I felt a little bit as though I were in a movie, although in a movie I would have had my back to some dark doorway – while the audience was yelling Get out of there, run! – and all of a sudden an arm would have wrapped around my throat from behind, and garroted me. Now I told the officer that "I think I'm going to go outside." I didn't feel up to dealing with some maniac who might come crashing through the door to the basement – breaking the two locks on it to do so – at any moment. That door was all of two feet from where I stood. Actually, I knew this was an unlikely scenario, but I was surprised at how frightened I felt, and being someplace where I could run seemed like a good idea. So I pulled on my robe, that I always leave thrown across the end of my sofa when I go to bed, in case somebody rings my doorbell in the middle of the night, and went out onto my tiny front stoop. And in maybe a minute two police cars pulled up. I was amazed and impressed with the speed of the response, but then I don't guess there's a whole lot of high crime taking place in Gardiner, Maine at 2:30 in the morning.

One fellow went around back; the other went inside with me, down my basement stairs that are so narrow you have to turn sideways to get down them. He tried the door, walked all around, poking into dark corners with his flashlight. Door was locked, no one was lurking behind the furnace. The fellow outside caught no one skulking in the bushes. So they went away, assuring me that it was probably the wind (but I knew the wind did not wear shoes).

And within three minutes I was on the phone again. This time what I had been hearing sounded like a body thumping up against the side of the house, right outside my window. "I really am not crazy," I said. "It may be an animal, but it's something." The fellow on the phone sounded a little less eager to protect and serve, but he said they'd send somebody back out. And in the meantime I put back on my fake-leopard robe, got a hammer out of the utility drawer, and the flashlight from where I keep it beside my bed – this is in case I wake up in the middle of the night and the power's gone out, so the night light I keep burning in the kitchen is out, and either I have to make my way to the bathroom, or I hear noises. This girl keeps herself prepared for all contingencies – and I went out to investigate myself.

Mind you, I have a gun. This dates from when Micheal and I were living out in the country in southern Louisiana, and he would be working offshore for three weeks at a time. I've always been a scaredy-cat when alone in a house at night (not in an apartment, which is what I lived in for most of my adult life, since then you have people all around you); and both Micheal and I had felt it would simply level the playing field if one of those times I heard a noise that frightened me, it actually proved to be a human being with dishonorable intentions.

But I haven't fired the gun in years; haven't even cleaned it in years. Couldn't remember if it was loaded. So decided I'd be better off with the hammer. So there I was, clutching the hammer and swinging my little flashlight around at the side of my house when the police arrived the second time. The young officer (who I think was amused by the hammer) sent me back inside while he walked all around the house. And then he came inside and informed me that I did indeed have an animal. Seems there's a nice big hole up under the eaves by the chimney, an open invitation to any homeless animal who can climb.

After the police left, while I was still standing in the living room, I heard my home invaders, yes, quite clearly over my head, rather than under my feet. I grabbed the broom and pounded on the woodwork that runs around the ceiling (couldn't really pound on the ceiling because it's a dropped ceiling, one of those cardboard things). Kept it up until whoever was up there got quiet. "I have to sleep!" I yelled at the interlopers. Then I went to bed. And today I informed my landlord that he needed to board up the hole.

So there you have the big excitement of my week. Definitely one of those times I could have used a man around the house. He could have gone outside with the hammer and the flashlight.

Death, where is thy sting?

Here’s a thought that surely most people who live alone – especially those who are no longer young and invincible – must grapple with: what happens if I die while I’m at home? Have a stroke, heart attack, serious fall? If such a thing happens when you’re out and about people will see, call the police, an ambulance, somebody will go through your pocketbook, your wallet, find out where you live, and on and on. But if you’re home alone when this happens, how long will it be before someone finds out? And in the meantime...

Having spent a lot of my reading time over the past decade or so devouring mysteries, I’ve long been familiar with the scenario wherein a body is discovered only several days into the decomposi-tion process, when the smell attracts the notice of neighbors. I don’t have a problem with the idea of dying, but the idea of police or fire fighters having to break down my door, only to be greeted by an unholy stench and a body so bloated with gases it’s unrecognizable is a definite turn-off. Perhaps that springs from the same vanity that kept me coloring my hair for over twenty years. I want to look good. At the very least, I don’t want to look bad. Not even when I’m dead, and the people seeing me are professionals who are used to seeing people who are not at their best.

So what do I do about this situation? As I’ve already mentioned, I have no near and dear living close by, no one who is accustomed to seeing me or at least talking to me on the phone every few days. I do try to talk to my mother in San Antonio about once a week, but if she doesn’t hear from me, she isn’t going to immediately assume that I’ve dropped dead. And even if she starts to worry, she’s 1900 miles away. There is no one who, not hearing from me, or being able to reach me by phone, would come running to see what the problem was.

I am the director of a small public library, and certainly if I didn’t turn up at work, or call in for, say, two days running, there would be alarm. My staff would know this “wasn’t like me.” But what if I’m watching an Inspector Linley mystery (which is how I’ve been entertaining myself the past few evenings, having checked DVDs of the first two seasons out from our library) on a Friday evening, and suddenly keel over, after experiencing the usual left arm/shoulder/ neck pain, sudden nausea, and shortness of breath. There I would lie, in my body’s spontaneously released waste, until, I suspect, along about Tuesday morning. The woman I work with on Monday mornings would be concerned that I wasn’t there, would call, would get no answer, would shoulder on until it was time for the changing of the guard at 1:30, when she might call again, before leaving. My Monday afternoon staff person would also be able to manage fine without me (we have a policy that no one should work alone for an extended period, but both of these women are capable of managing alone). Barb, my morning person, might call again in the evening, express concern to her husband – “I hope nothing’s happened.” If she tried again Tuesday morning, and still got no answer, I suspect she would call the police, and sometime during the course of the day I would be “discovered.” But hey, that’s three full days, four nights. Plenty of time for the gases to build up...

No doubt this discussion is striking some readers as a tad morbid. But this really is the sort of the thing that one realizes one must think about, like making a will and buying a burial plot, as senior citizen-hood attacks with full force. When you’re young you’re never going to die – and isn’t it wonderful how the human mind has developed that defense mechanism, to keep from dwelling on the one absolute reality that awaits all living things – but when you reach a certain age, and everything is starting to break down periodically, like a car that really needs to be replaced, then you know you’re going to die, and suspect you’d better make some arrangements.

So I’ve looked Death in the face, and am not afraid of it. But I want to be tidied up and tucked away as soon as possible, like a human being still swathed in what may be our greatest illusion – that of dignity.