Angle of Inclination in Everyday Ramblings

Still waiting to hear about Diego’s test. He had a hard day on Saturday but has been pretty happy since then. I have lived with sick cats before, but this is different, this chronic intermittent thing is the challenge.

My smoke alarm went off at 2:30AM and I woke up abruptly and jumped out of bed. By the time I got into the next room it had stopped. There was smoke in here, I opened a window, put on pants and tried to figure out next steps… get the cats in their carriers, run outside. In the end I grabbed a mask and my keys and went out in the drizzle to see what was going on with the rest of the building.

Nothing. No one out and about, no lights on except my upstairs neighbor, no smoke. It took me about 45 minutes to calm down and check and make sure nothing was burning or getting worse. I then turned the fan on in front of the open window. My heating vent is right under the smoke detector.

Last week I took the vent cover off and cleaned it as our temperatures are dropping. I used paper towels and a miracle cloth, no cleaning fluid or anything. It was quite dusty. What I think happened is that the temperature dropped in the middle of the night and the heater turned on and the dust I didn’t get had been stirred up and burned. The top of the vent felt warm to the touch when I got up.

But I don’t know. It could have been something my upstairs neighbor did. I will test the heat later when it is light, and I can point the fan right at it.

On Thursday I left the house fairly early to walk across the river to the locksmith’s shop to get extra keys made and I noticed as I was on the corner that traffic was being rerouted up my street from the big street below. Not a good sign.

Then I ran into Charity on the next block coming home. She told me there had been a motorcycle accident on the corner down there. She said that someone had been killed and that the body was still there. It was where I needed to go, I could have walked around a complicated way, but I don’t know, I assumed, coroner, ambulance, discretion etc. I have read too many mysteries and watched to many crime dramas, I guess.

It is a true blessing he didn’t hit anyone else or run into a car. He was coming around a curve down there and hit a light pole. He flew forward off the bike and it skidded into a bus shelter. There was crime scene tape around the intersection and two police officers with no masks and a big camera, but no ambulance or trucks. The body was lying there in plain sight. He was 43 years old and his name was Timothy Boyette and he had a family somewhere and people that cared about him.

The casualness of it, the lack of dignity, triggered something deep in me that days later I am still wrestling with. It has something to do with the callous disregard our government is communicating for the 214,000 Americans that have died from the virus is exhibiting. There was an AP bulletin on the accident. It was our 39th traffic death of the year here but there was no story anywhere about this man’s life. It is easy to assume he was drunk or on drugs, but he could have had the virus and had a stroke. His heart could have stopped. We don’t know.

We don’t know.

I went on, had a positive experience at the locksmiths’ and got cash at the bank, something I haven’t done since March. Many branches are closing here. When we come back out here it is going to be a whole new world.

All my test results came back and a couple factors are a bit low but there is no indication that my back/leg issue is systemic so that is good news. I have discovered 8-hour release Tylenol for arthritis that is most helpful.

On Saturday night, (Mrs. Sherlock had cancelled our walking date Sunday, she was tired and it was raining) I stayed up literally all night and finished reading the new Louise Penny mystery that takes place almost exclusively in Paris through the characters do return to Three Pines at the very end.

The overnight reading extravaganza was great. I haven’t done that in years and it was kind of like taking a vacation. The book was okay. There was one part near the big crisis that I got confused and thought was a bit problematic but basically it was engaging.

My inclination this week is to try to stay grounded and relatively sane and to fill out my ballot and be kind and not let the news grind me down.

Diego is standing in the gloom next to my laptop looking at me as if I had answers.

Maybe I will. Maybe we will.

Last updated October 15, 2020