Author: lief

The other day Abby and I were headed to return/rent some movies and we were alone on Old Benson with 3 dashing crows and an adult Bald Eagle flying the same direction as us.

The eagle swooped down and picked up a rodent/squirrel from the road and carried it to about 30ft where it evaded the three crows and our Camry. We drove about 150ft as fast as an eagle flies, fully laden with rodent, directly below the focus of attention. Very cool indeed.

Right about then I was really loving the sunroof.
Reminded me of a night about 25 years ago when we tracked some sort of an owl in the Volvo. Monya and BopOp may be able to elaborate.

A couple of nights ago Angela heard a “noise” that woke her from a deep sleep. Terrified, she did what every good horror film sacrificial character does…she went to look around the house. She tells me that she did have the 9 and the 1 already dialed with her trigger finger poised over the 1 for that final desperate moment before the “noise” gets her and sucks her into Freddies Dreamland or whatever.
I am teasing but she hears so many noises that I am beginning to ignore her warnings (where possible). One of three things usually happens.

1) She smacks me awake with a sharp elbow in the temple and an unintelligible string of whisper-yelled instructions that I couldn’t possibly interpret without clarification since the first half of it came while I was SLEEPING. So in my adrenaline enhanced confusion I “snap awake” and yell at the top of my still snoring lungs

WHAT!?

alerting any potential intruder to the precise location of her only friend in such a situation. Me. So in the worst case I am the first to go and in all other cases I am the first one back to sleep.
Or…2) She doesn’t say anything, looks around the house on her own in a cold sweat, with her trigger finger poised as above and only tells me about it the next morning. In this case, I am only alerted to the presence of the intruder by either the police or said intruder breaking in my door which will pretty much lead to the same response as above.

WHAT!?

and I “snap awake” blah blah blah. I am still the first one back to sleep. It has, to date, turned out to be me getting to sleep first.
Or…3) We both hear the noise…WHAT!?…we both listen tensely, hearts beating the comforter off the bed, potential Intruder and maker-of-noise doesn’t show his/her face, there is not any more unusual noise, it turns out to be nothing, and I am STILL the first one back to sleep.

I probably would have been eaten by a Sabre-toothed Tiger by now if I lived in the stone age. Even an old, slow, dumb, arthritic, injured one.
Okay, so the other night she wakes up, does #2 (from above), and I only find out 2 days later that there is a record of a very loud noise. That is she ACTUALLY heard something. It was the 5 x 3 foot tempered glass panel that fell out of a section of the railing on our deck twisting the bottom channel nearly out of its moorings.
I figured it was the heavy wind combined with the fact that they didn’t appear to be installed correctly. So I carry the sheet of glass to a flat spot in the backyard and resolve to contact the former owner for some knowledge transfer. Amazingly, the encounter with the concrete and rocks did nothing to shatter it’s integrity.
Then today I casually glanced outside while brewing some hot liquid refreshment and see a noticeably non-refreshing sight. ANOTHER twisted bottom channel and missing section of glass. This time however it wasn’t lucky enough to hit the ground to test it’s temperament and remained hanging for dear life by the twisted channel. Another horizontal flat spot is it’s home tonight.

They were all newly installed before we took ownership of Talbot and it seems the cork shims on the bottom were either installed wrong or compressed too much too soon or whatever. I am eager to hear back from the previous owner about who may have installed these stage diving panels.