I dreamed of my grandfather. I know we aren’t supposed to talk about our dreams because they mean little and hold no interest and this one is going nowhere anyway, but it’s my dream and my site. So, I dreamed of my grandfather. He was coming in the front door of his house. They had a smallish house, but big for its time. And it always looked larger from the outside. I suppose everything does from the perpetual memory of youth. He was a young grandfather, and healthy. He was probably still strong and working.
Most of my life that wasn’t the case. He had a few brain aneurysms when I was in junior high and it laid him low. He was working on his truck, he drove 18-wheelers late in his working life, and something between his brain and his heart just couldn’t get along. I suppose it was often like that for him. He recovered a bit, took some therapy, but I don’t think it really took to him, and that was it. For the rest of my life, into my 30s, he was there in almost every way, but couldn’t care for himself. He’d get dizzy if you stood him up to fast. Someone had to walk him even around the house he built. He was sometimes difficult to understand, which frustrated him, because everything was all in his head, he just struggled getting it out.
It made him nicer, in some ways. More patient. As if understanding his own limitations made him understanding of other things. He was pretty much always nice to me, even as a young grandfather, but I have stories that he’d been a hard man to deal with sometimes. But, after his own body humbled him and he became homebound and his working man’s hands grew soft, so did his personality. He was lovely, and yet still humorously opinionated in the way that old men are.
I wish I could tell you I had some conversation with him in the dream, that he gave me some insight or a sign or a tip on next weekend’s games. (He’d pick Roy Jones in that fight, though, and tell you boxing just isn’t what it used to be, and he’d be right.) But it was just a few images and flashes. It was their house, and I was there, but not modern me. Maybe a me out of time. And the furniture wasn’t really right. And the room was brighter than it ever was. The living room had a dark wood panelling and faced the east and was only light by lamps and the TV. It didn’t matter. Everything that happened in that house happened happened in the kitchen. I assume that’s where my grandmother was in the dream, in her kitchen, but I don’t know.
My uncle was there. And he looked like a younger adult in the dream, too, which meant it would have been the louder, cocksure version of himself, rather than the quieter cocksure man he’d age into. The younger uncle stood at the corner of my grandparents’ living room, where the hall and the kitchen and the living room meet. And for some reason, he had a garden tiller in the house, just sitting right there on the carpet.
Like I said, this dream went nowhere. It’s notable only because I seldom remember dreams, and this is the rare case when I do recall a dream, and it included an important person.
And that’s how my off week begins. It isn’t how my holiday started.
This is a story about the windows in our house. Really, it’s a story about our blinds in our house, which means it’s a story about our house.
I was just talking with a friend recently about the condition of some things. We bought this place from a family of eight. There two kids and a newborn, and some of the walls and doors prove it. I was saying that, some of the scratches and gouges and things, I’d leave, because they tell the story of the place. But some should be fixed, if I had the wherewithal, or a good Wherewithal Guy. One day some of them will be repaired and disguised, but the trick would be deciding which few to leave, to honor the kids that used to be here.
It’s a silly thing, probably, but it seems important somehow.
Anyway, a lot of the windows have blinds we inherited. Blinds are great! Precisely until the moment when they are the worst thing in the world. In the master bathroom there are three windows and in the last year or so I’ve replaced all three sets of blinds. One broken down with age and sunlight exposure — or kids rappelling off the wall — and one of the cats broke the other two sets. I hung a few sets of blinds elsewhere in the house, and that was fun.
You shouldn’t call that fun, because that would be a lie, and your house might be more perceptive than you imagine.
So let me try again. I hung a few sets of blinds elsewhere in the house, and that was a horrible, no good experience that I still dwell on when I’m underneath them.
And so it was that, today, we decided to replace the blinds in The Yankee’s office. Because one of the sets had decided that string tension was no longer a desirable attribute.
Having installed the six sets of blinds described above I can tell you this about blinds: the technology has changed since the last time you went blind shopping. You can’t get those with the raising-and-lowering strings on the right side anymore. These days, you adjust the height of your blinds with your mind! And also your hand, which you place along the bottom of the blinds, which somehow correctly interprets which way you want them to go. Also, whatever old school system of installation your blinds have, is now obsolete. Remember how I just told you I’ve installed six sets of blinds in this house? Well now I’ve installed eight. And there are three different sets of hangars at play.
And since I knew those things, we decided to not just replace the failed set of blinds in her office, but their companion blinds, as well. May as well bring both windows up to code.
What could follow is five paragraphs about today’s chore, detailing the moving of the desk, the removal of the old blinds, the removal of the old installation system — which involves breaking plastic and a stripped screw that I removed with a ratchet. I would have told you all about trying to figure out how the new brackets work with the new blinds, because while I hd two sets, only one came with instructions and, wouldn’t you know, they were in the second box. There is also the discussion of the installation of the new style of brackets, still awkward angles, still aching arms, still eight screws, and at least that many dropped screws.
But I won’t tell you those things. We’re already at 1,200 words and there’s still so much to go!
Somewhere during the evening, though, I remembered the blinds in my office window were also ruined. And maybe, juuuust maybe, the still working blinds from her office would fit mine. Not every window is the same size. That’s something you don’t often think about, but that’s something you can ponder the next time you’re locked down.
So, I retrieved her used-but-good blinds, which were ready to be disposed of, and tried them in my office. Same hanging system, meaning, quite possibly for the first time in the history of window covering systems, an easy installation. And here they are:
They look great in my window. I think I’ll keep them, and never touch them so they can’t break.
On Mondays in this space we check in with the cats. I am pleased to report they are both doing splendidly. A few weeks ago Phoebe enjoyed some time in these old grocery sacks.
And two weeks later Poseidon discovered them, as well.
I’d fold up the sacks and put them away for some future use, but they clearly belong to the cats now.
More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And don’t forget to keep up with me on Twitter and on Instagram. There are also some very interesting On Topic with IU podcasts for you, as well.
