Breakage

The garage door is broken. Ever since the painter messed with it for no reason, it has made a terrible screeching noise every time it is raised. Today, it stopped screeching when it was about three quarters of the way up, but only because it stopped dead. It won't go up, it won't go down.

It's not something I can fix myself, so there's an unexpected expense (and just in time to be heaped on top of the expected expense of heating season.) It will have to be fixed before the next rainstorm, which could be as early as Thursday but might not be until Saturday. Wind could blow rain inside the garage and get my boxes of books wet.

I suppose I could haul the boxes into the house, but then I'd run the risk of needing to make extra visits to the chiropractor, so I might as well spend the money on getting the door fixed. Besides, chiropractic treatments do nothing to prevent raccoons from peeing in my garage.

The onset of cold weather always gives me strange dreams, but I seldom remember them. All I know is that usually I wake up suddenly with vaguely disturbing visions in my head which immediately vanish. On those rare occasions when a dream lingers long enough for me to memorize bits of it, I'm always bewildered as to where it came from, so distant are its images from anything I've ever experienced in waking life. If the recent dreams follow the usual pattern, they'll stop once I've grown accustomed to sleeping in the cold. That's how I know my blankets aren't haunted.

Now, if I could only get Portia to stop trying to steal my breath as I sleep.

Brrr

The garage door is fixed, for now, and it didn't cost anything. That's the benefit of having relatives who are better with mechanical stuff than I am. There's no telling how long it will last, though. The device is about 25 years old, and likely to go haywire again soon. It still makes odd noises, but at least it isn't screeching.

The cicadas all vanished from the back porch sink last night. I guess the feral cats are eating them, or maybe it was the black cat from across the street. He thinks he lives here now, even though I chase him away all the time. Last night he was sleeping on the chaise lounge, while the three feral kittens slept in their chair a few feet away. I think maybe black cat has been neutered. He doesn't pester the kittens, and doesn't pick fights with Portia either. Neutered male cats sometimes get very mellow.

In fact the only reason I'm still running him off is because the cat food runs out so fast with him eating it too. I run him off, but he still manages to sneak back when I'm not looking and devour every scrap. Apparently the people he lives with don't feed him, or don't feed him anything he likes as much as the food I leave out. If they move away and leave him behind, I know I'm going to end up feeding him indefinitely. A big bag of cat food doesn't last long with six cats eating it. I'm hoping for more cicadas to turn up tonight.

The day was sunny but chilly, and it's already down to forty degrees now, and still dropping. I'm going to go curl up on the couch with a cat and a pile of blankets and watch television. This room is just too hard to keep warm in.