Recovery

I guess we all know the big one is coming. The Polar Vortex. The cold.  It began here last night with a lot of wind. I lay in bed  realizing there probably is nowhere in anyone's mobile home to put a bed that is not on an outside wall.

So, I slept fitfully, listening to the wind and the driven rain pick at the siding and blow loose stuff around. Not more than small branches and dirt, but stuff definitely was on the move.

My heating system has come up for discussion in the past. It is a heat exchanger, used for heat in winter and cool in summer. 

My sister was here the other day, and while the "furnace" was running, she put her hand down over the nearby grill and said "That really is cool air!" Take that, universe. My sister stuck her hand in my heat, and it is cold.

I digress. I was sleeping fitfully, hearing the wind pick at my siding, when suddenly the heat exchanger made a grinding, banging noise. It would not stop. I lay in bed, rueing it was one in the morning, Sunday morning, and soon I would be out of heat and hard pressed to get maintenance here on Sunday.

But it quit, and I fell asleep for an hour, to be waked again by the horrible noise. I knew I could change the furnace over to "emergency" and burn dollar bills for heat, and I got up to do so. 

In the middle of the kitchen, I encountered Toby the Cat, on full alert, in the event the horrible banging, grinding noise came at him through the back door. He apparently intended to size it up, face to face, before he selected flight or fight.

I stopped to pat his brave head, and in the midst of the next rush of grinding and banging, I realized it was the outside storm door, left unlatched and now swinging wildly in the wind. Pulling it tight was not easy; it was a couple of tugs to get the latch secured.

The next evening I asked Laura if the noise had waked her. Yes it had, and what was it. "The storm door someone left unlatched last night."

"Yeah, I thought I didn't hear it click."

Sigh.

Stay warm. Bring in the pets. Feed the birds.