She's Leaving Home

           Don’t get me wrong. I do love our house and where it sits at the end of  a short dead-end road conveniently located right near the center of our small town. There are times, however when living here can be a bit of a challenge.

          Even after being here for almost eighteen years, we’re still doing a little here and there to improve our home. We’ve become spoiled by car keys that don’t need to be removed from our pockets and thought, wouldn’t it be neat if we didn’t need to dig out a key to unlock the front door?

          When the door knob on the outside door grew so rickety that a child with a strand of uncooked spaghetti could have jimmied it open, it was time for that change. Thus, we now have this push-button arrangement that frees us from distributing keys to the neighbors and cat sitters, and can be re-programmed easily once I unearth the instructions from that unlabeled folder in my file cabinet. 

     Now if my daughter and her family are arriving from New Jersey at a time when we might be somewhere else, they can go right in.

 Or they can once they ask our 10 year-old middle grandson Gabe, the keeper of all important information, what the code is. 

So, getting through the door has been streamlined for all.

          It’s getting to the door and even from the door that’s sometimes problematic.

          We’ve had rain for almost two straight days – and yes, we’re deeply grateful it’s not snow. We didn’t fully realize when we bought this house that it came with a water feature. We’re near the bottom of our town’s small mountain and so the street in front of house slopes accordingly. Add to that the downward trough of our driveway and voila!

Luckily, the garage is unaffected so I can get to my car and as long as our visitors bring their hip waders, we’re all set.

          Last night, though, on my way to a meeting, I’d forgotten about this winter’s new development. We didn’t cut back the clematis that arches over our front porch in the summertime and so even though it’s December, the vines and leaves are still intact.

I went out the door and headed toward the garage, purse on one shoulder, notebooks in my left arm, travel mug of tea in my right. I was on the verge of being late and moving quickly. 

Suddenly I was being dive-bombed by creatures as startled as I was, if that’s possible.

          It seems we have a pair of finches who must be enjoying the heat that leaks from our un-insulated family room and is then held by the porch’s overhang and the vine’s windbreak.

   

I’ll be getting to my car now by way of the back door of the garage.