thisendoftheswamp

I think T.S. Eliot was wrong. April is not the “cruelest month” – it’s March.

This past month has been perfectly lovely – temps in the upper 60s and low 70s. Beautiful weather. We didn’t need the furnace once in the last two weeks. This weekend the bottom fell out, and we had snow flurries yesterday on the way to church. Today is not supposed to be much better – 36-F, and windy, but it will gradually creep upward over the next couple of days.

We always seem to have our worst snowstorms in March, so we have three more days to hold our breath!

I came downstairs this morning to find what I first thought was water drops all over the kitchen floor. A second glance revealed what I saw was glass shards, not water. At some point during the night “person or persons unknown” had thrown a chunk of concrete through one of the kitchen windows. The only thing that is missing is my purse, which I kept on a chair behind the breakfast bar, so it was invisible from the kitchen door.

I woke The Squire and called 911, and then we sat and waited. And waited. I called a little after 7:00 and the officer didn’t arrive until close to 9 o’clock. The damage had been done and there was really nothing the police could do, so it wasn’t an emergency, but we couldn’t use the kitchen until the police had viewed the Scene of the Crime.

This is the chunk of concrete that was thrown through the window. It is slightly over 6 feet from the window to the sink, and it was thrown with enough force to shatter the colander that was in the sink. (See Sept. 23, 2020)

It’s rather hard to see the broken windows in this shot because of the “shrink wrap” we had over both side windows. There was glass EVERYWHERE – from one side of the kitchen to the other – and the kitchen is sixteen feet wide.

Several mysteries about this business. I keep my purse on a chair between that window and the breakfast bar, so it is not visible to anyone who comes to the door. Was this a crime of opportunity, or did the person know it was there? And how did they know? How did they manage to reach it? The officer was slightly over six feet tall, and he could barely reach the windowsill from the outside. Besides, anybody who tried to crawl in through the window would have cut themselves seriously. There was a good bit of glass on the outside, where they had pulled it from the frame and tossed it aside, but there was still plenty of jagged glass along the bottom of both the inside and outside windows.

This is how they managed to take my purse. It was on the seat of that chair, and partially covered by my jacket, which fell over when they grabbed it. As I said, somebody had to know it was there. That black spot on the paneling is mud – don’t ask how that got there! – and the white spot on the floor is glass.

And of course, this had to happen on a day when the entire house looked as if the Devil had had a fit. Not only was the kitchen a mess, but we were working a jigsaw puzzle in the living room, and the dining room table was piled with stuff, including things I had been using to work on a dollhouse.

Let’s face it, I’ll never pass the physical to subscribe to Good Housekeeping.

The last day of my last assignment, I pulled out in front of another car and was T-Boned. The rear door on the driver’s side was “stove in”, but the car was drivable. The Squire is infinitely grateful that it wasn’t the driver’s door, or I wouldn’t be here to discuss it. The insurance company said they would cover it, so we took the car to the collision center on February 28th.

I still don’t have it back.

Today, on the way home from a business meeting, The Squire heard a loud POP under the hood and his car began making a roaring sound – the sort of noise that cuts straight through your eardrum and into your brain. We stopped at our favorite repair shop on the way home. and Dan took the car out on a quick road test. The power-steering pump has gone flooey. Fortunately, he can have a pump in by tomorrow morning, and have it repaired for us by noon. And, by the Grace of God, it will only be $500, including parts and labor.

In the meantime, we will be totally without transportation.

. . . but we have a flock of vultures in the yard this morning.

There were six stalking around in the yard, and two on the ridge of the barn. The really disconcerting thing was that they followed me around the house and were waiting outside the front porch when I got birdseed and peanuts. The Squire came looking for me when he saw them move around there. I don’t know if he was afraid I’d try to make pets of them, or if I’d fallen and the vultures thought I was already dead. Yes, I’m pale, but gee willikers! To quote Monty Python, “I’m not dead yet.”

Later on, they moved around to the carport and began to eat the peanuts we’d put out for the squirrels. They reminded me of the old cartoon of two buzzards in a tree, and one says to the other “Wait, hell! I say we go kill something!”

Yesterday morning, The Squire and I got involved in putting together a jig-saw puzzle and suddenly realized we had Someplace To Be. We gathered the things we needed, and he put the stuff in the car. As I was coming out the kitchen door, he called to me. I thought he said, “Lock the door”, but what he said was, “Don’t lock the door.” He had not collected his wallet, jacker, or – most importantly – his car keys. For that matter, both sets of keys, as I don’t generally bother with my purse if he is driving; he has the keys and the VISA, so what do I need?

So, there we are, with neither my keys nor his. He went off in search of the spare house key, unlock the kitchen door, collected his wallet, etc., and came back out. He settled himself in the driver’s seat and then let out a stream of invective.

He’d laid the spare key on the counter and come out without it. We were now well and truly up the proverbial creek, without a paddle.

After calling two friends, neither of whom had a key to our house, we had no choice but to call a locksmith. I’ll tell you right up front, spending $200 for your own stupidity will definitely improve your memory!