Let There Be Something

A day of rest was a good idea. It's not like my days are normally chock-full of activity, of noses pressed against grindstones, grinding (I guess) away. I have some flexibility.

But I was without a car, first of all. The weather has been cool, not bad but not more than 41 or so for a high, not exactly tempting. There were no appointments to keep, not much at all necessary if I didn't feel a call, so I napped. Several times. And drank plenty of liquid and generally tried to take it easy, and you know, that stuff just works.

It worked yesterday, anyway, and it worked for me. I feel good this morning, coughing much more but much more easily, if you get it. Chest not so tight, cough not so painful. Aches almost gone. A cold, maybe a bad cold, but only a cold. Not the demon flu.

And the missus didn't nudge me this morning, just walked to the bus stop (about 1/4 mile, but again: it's been cool and rainy), and I didn't crack my eyelids until after 7 this morning, my Fitbit telling me I got 8 hours and 1 minute of restful sleep. I'm feeling it, too.

So this worked out as well as could be expected. I dodged the flu, and while nothing I did kept it from coming, it still didn't come. Live to cough another day, and so on.

...

My day of rest coincided with some Adventures With Electricity™, always a joy. I've been noticing the light in this room flickering occasionally, just dimming for a few seconds, then brightening. It makes me think that someone is getting the electric chair somewhere in the county, but with all the construction work going on around here, I just assumed. Assumed whatever, you know. Conduits were being disturbed, assumptions like that. As if I know anything.

But when I woke up yesterday, things were different. For one thing, we were offline, which took a few minutes to restore and should have been a clue. Then the lights were worse with the flickering, in some cases brightening in a big way. Enough to see secret cobwebs hiding in the kitchen, that kind of bright.

And then a weird noise, intermittently (turned out to be my stereo speakers, which I turned off, which seemed prudent), and then a routine loss of internet, every few minutes. And then a big boom, and a burning smell, and then it stopped being fun.

I did a lot of sick-day rationalizing and intellectualizing and deducing, together with my son. We were concerned about our personal infrastructure, that this old house had finally bitten the dust and needed to be completely rewired, costing tens of thousands and causing us to live under an overpass.

Or it could be the larger infrastructure thing, just all the trucks and holes and generators puffing away out on the street, causing problems. That seemed reasonable.

Or it could be something to contact the utility people about, which I figured I'd do. I just wanted to watch and wait for a while. I unplugged unnecessary stuff and took another nap.

And eventually an electric company truck showed up, said they needed to turn off the power for a few minutes to replace something that was obviously going bad. Asked if we'd had any electrical issues, nodded when I described them. They wrestled with a hole in the ground by the pole for about half an hour, then we were good. No more flickers. The lights do seem brighter. Who knows.

But, as I said, this is an old house. It's too big for us now, with that big basement that just gets filled up with junk. Lots of lighting fixtures without bulbs. A few outlets that just stopped working and we never checked out. Seemed like there was a wonky circuit that made a wacky journey around the house, since power to the garage disappeared a while ago, but also power to an outlet in the bathroom and a few in our bedroom (but not all). Annoying but we had bigger problems. Extension cords came into play and we just ignored. There is even a light fixture, over the kitchen table, that hasn't worked in years. I forgot all about it. It's right by the patio door, and light fills in the space from other sources. I actually just forgot about it.

Until it flickered into life. Just all of a sudden yesterday, with the other surges and strange behavior. Flicker, flicker, on. And those outlets? Pretty darn functional now, every one.

I guess you can explain all of this. I'm not really going to try, other than to restate my initial text message to JK when we discovered this: OUR HOUSE IS HEALING ITSELF.

When really, if you know me well you also know what I was thinking, which is that this is obviously a big ol' rift in reality and I just sit here now, waiting for the portal to open, waiting for whatever is coming through to come. Possibly aliens. Maybe the flu.

But I'm RESTED. Just a cough. Should be good. More later.